


Virgin Sacrifice à la Mode

by crabapplered



Category: One Piece
Genre: Anal Fingering, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Other, Sex Pollen, Tentacles, dubcon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:40:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 46,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8175314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crabapplered/pseuds/crabapplered
Summary: There's got to be some kind of cosmic irony that vanilla is what starts the whole affair.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a one-shot. It's not a one-shot. 
> 
> Personally, I blame Usopp.

There's got to be some kind of cosmic irony that vanilla is what starts the whole affair. The rich, sweet scent of it is carried on a gentle westerly, past fluttering banners and market stalls, twisting down the lanes crowded with shoppers and strolling sellers, to coil into Sanji's sensitive nose.  
  
He's bent over huge woven baskets of strawberries at the time. Mayshee is a Spring island, tiny, peaceful, and fertile, its hills green with fresh grasses, its trees bedecked with flowers, its gardens ripe with tender new plants. And strawberries! It has some of the most amazing strawberries Sanji has ever seen, from scarlet lovelies the size of a fist to little ruby darlings no bigger then a thumbnail. And no watery, tasteless showpieces here! All of them have the strong, sweet tartness that makes strawberries so charming.  
  
His mind is a whirl of spring produce -carrots and leeks and sweet peas and rhubarb, asparagus and radishes and morels and spinach- which is why the scent of vanilla on the wind is such a shock.  
  
Vanilla orchids are touchy plants. They only grow in the hot, wet heat of a tropical Summer island where they must be pampered and hand pollinated to produce in any kind of quantity. To smell it here . . .  
  
He stands straight and breaths deep. Yes. This is the scent of vanilla beans and not someone's perfume.  
  
The strawberries aren't going anywhere, but the scent of vanilla is fading, so Sanji turns away from the fruit stall and sets off into the press of the crowd, his pack mule's bitching a low counterpoint to the cries of "ASPARAGUS! So fresh it snaps at a flick!" and "Sugar Peas! Eat 'em fresh, eat 'em whole!"  
  
"Fucking cook, you drag me all over the goddamn market to find your perfect fruit and now you just drop everything and wander off?"  
  
It would be nice, Sanji muses as he tosses his cigarette butt aside to better catch the scent, if they could replace Zoro with an actual mule. It'd be better tempered, less likely to steal booze out of the pantry, and so much better looking.  
  
"Seriously, what's the idea," Zoro continues, shouldering aside other shoppers with careless ease despite the massive panniers of produce Sanji has loaded him down with. "You look like a dog with your nose in the air like that."  
  
"That's 'cuz I'm following a scent, dumbass."  
  
Zoro stops dead. "Pervy fuck. I'm here to help with the shopping, not track down a woman by her perfume."  
  
"This has nothing to do with a woman, so quit bitching and move those legs. The scent is fading and I don't want to miss this chance."  
  
Zoro grumbles, but he starts walking again and that's all that Sanji cares about right now. It's getting harder to trace the fragrance of vanilla, the conflicting smells of the market -raw beef and live poultry and roasting duck and fish on ice, apples and onions and garlic and mint, spices and sweating people and copper pans and mineral oil- rise up to coil through Sanji's nose, his sinuses, his lungs. It's all seductive, but there's only one beauty he's interested in right now.  
  
Speaking of beauty-  
  
"ROBIN-CHWAN~~~~" he carols.  
  
Twenty feet away and barely visible in the press of the crowd, Robin-chan looks up from the bookstall she's been browsing. Her dark eyes easily light on Sanji, who has considerately made himself more visible by clambering up on top of the panniers Zoro is carrying.  
  
Is she smiling? She is! That lovely quirk of the lips, that softening of her deep, dark eyes. Sanji sighs happily.  
  
The he yelps, yanked off his perch by the ankle, Zoro throwing him to the ground and snarling, "I'm not something you can step on, asshole cook!"  
  
"A mossy rock is just as good as any other for standing on, Mosshead," Sanji fires back.  
  
Zoro has obviously overworked his brain, because all he manages in retort is, "I'll fucking cut you!" and grabs the hilt of one of his penis extensions. He'd have been a green smear moments later except that darling Robin-chan steps out of the crowd and Sanji must turn away from the delightful prospect of crushing Zoro beneath his heel, and instead make sure that Robin-chan is not thirsty or hungry or in desperate need of some other gallantry.  
  
"No, thank you, Cook-san," she says to each of his offers. "I don't need anything. I am curious as to what brings you to this side of the market, however. You said you were in particular need of fresh fruit."  
  
"Robin-chwan is so kind, paying attention to my needs~~~" Sanji warbles happily. "Ah! But I came here because I caught wind of something else very important." He takes an experimental sniff, frowns, wilts a little. "I seem to have lost the trail though. Damn."  
  
Zoro mumbles something that might be, "No dog biscuit for you," but Sanji graciously choses to ignore it because Robin-chan is deigning to offer her aid!  
  
"I suspect I'll be much more efficient at tracking a scent then you, Cook-san, and I'd be happy to help."  
  
It's a tough decision, and Sanji hesitates a good thirty seconds before giving in and saying, "I would never dream of making you do my work for me, Robin-chwan! But it's true you've got talents I don't, and this might be my only chance to stock up. It's vanilla. Fresh vanilla beans, not perfume."  
  
"That's what we've been chasing? A shitty dessert flavour?" Zoro sneers disgustedly.  
  
"Morons who don't know what they're talking about should keep their traps shut," says Sanji, and glares poison at Zoro. "Vanilla is crucial. It's versatile as fuck, goes in more recipes then there is hair on your head and," he adds with grim finality, "is in the special hot chocolate I make for Nami-san. A bottle goes a long way, but we're starting to run out, and it's hard to tell when we'll find more. The plants are so finicky that the stuff is worth as much as saffron out here on the Grand Line."  
  
Robin-chan crosses her hands at the wrist and smiles again, a delicate curve of luscious lips. "I enjoy it, too."  
  
And oh, Sanji can't help but croon and wiggle, because sophisticated Robin-chan who enjoys subtle, adult flavours, is still charmed by the simplicity of sweet vanilla. Such an unexpected tenderness to her! An innocence! A purity! Though she's always been the mature counterpoint to Nami-san, Sanji is delighted to discover that Robin-chan, too, has a girlish side.  
  
He can see her now as he never has before, long legs hidden by a frothy skirt of white lace, those amazing breasts held tight and close by a modest bodice in milky silk, her dark eyes glowing as her lips, frosted pale with just a hint of pink lipstick mouth the words-  
  
"I've found it. Follow me, please."  
  
His fantasy chips at the edges.  
  
It dies, crushed beyond hope by Zoro's voice: "You gonna play with yourself all day, shit cook, or are you gonna follow Robin now that she's done all the work?"  
  
It's much more important to catch up to Robin-chan's retreating back then waste time with Zoro, so Sanji lets him have that one.  
  
The trio makes its winding way through the market, following the trail of eyes and noses and pointing hands leading the way, and maybe it'd be a bit odd, a bit uncanny, a bit creepy, but it's _Robin-chan_ , and so instead Sanji just feels admiration for how versatile she is.  
  
Now, the nine foot tall skeleton waving at them cheerily over the heads of the other shoppers - that's creepy.  
  
_That reminds me, I need to swing by a butcher and get some extra racks of lamb ribs for that honey and wine recipe I wanted to try._  
  
Swaying toward them through the crowd, Brook is like an enormous dandelion puff, his magnificent afro made snowy by the cherry petals that have nestled in its curls. His voice floats above the noise of spirited bargaining to coil around them in cheery hello. "A fortuitous meeting! Zoro-san, I wished to tell you that I found a sword sharpener with uchiko balls for sale, and took the liberty of procuring a replacement for the one lost from your kit during Usopp's last amusing escapade."  
  
"Ahhh? Thanks, Brook."  
  
"Yo ho! A most sincere pleasure to be of service. Ah, but you all seem to be in a hurry. If I may ask?"  
  
"Vanilla," is all Sanji says. "Robin-chwan?"  
  
She smiles at him reassuringly. "Next lane over, Cook-san."  
  
His heart flutters. "Robin-chwan anticipates my questions so well! Does this mean we're growing closer?"  
  
"More like a dumbass is just easy to read," Zoro grumbles.  
  
Sanji hisses, smoke coiling in streams from his nostrils like angry, thrashing snakes. "Will you just shut the fuck up with the side commentary, Cabbagehead? I know you're lonely away from the lettuce, but we'll go right back to the produce section after this!"  
  
"The only one crying about being lonely is you, desperate pervert!"  
  
Brook trembles, shedding petals and dramatic tears. "Ah, but loneliness is the cruelest of pains, Zoro-san! Just the memory of it pierces my heart, though I have none!"  
  
"Very true," says Robin, in that quiet way of hers that carries more meaning than words. "But you certainly aren't lonely now, are you, Skeleton-san?"  
  
Brook cheers immediately. "Not at all! I have been truly blessed to find such friends as yourselves to accompany once again across the seas and under the sun. Yo ho ho! Why, such joy I feel makes me-"  
  
"It had better make you walk faster," Sanji snaps, muscling past Brook and shoving anxiously through the crowd. "Because there's no telling what kind of supply they have. Shit! Fuck! I actually kind of wish that dumb rubber bastard was here to slingshot me across this crowd."  
  
Sanji has good reason to stress. The stall they're looking for is right at hand once they turn into the next lane, but the crush of the crowd around it keeps them from seeing anything but the backs of heads and the enormous wooden sign, an extravagant affair with the word 'Ambrwazee' carved into it in elegant cursive and gilt with gold leaf, garlands of flowers strung from it in colourful ropes of petals. Sanji tries to worm his way in only to get an elbow in the chest, and he staggers back cursing through clenched teeth.  
  
Brook is kind enough to steady him when Robin-chan is clearly occupied in making sure some unsavoury boor doesn't run into her in the crowded market streets.  
  
Zoro scowls at the shoppers. "The shit cook I understand, but how can this many people be so worked up about vanilla?"  
  
Robin-chan smiles. "Ah, but this stall doesn't just sell vanilla, Swordsman-san. It has exotic fruit, dyes, orchids in pots . . ."  
  
"Oh my!" Brook exclaims, using his enormous height to peer over heads and get a clear view. "It seems they're giving away free samples of saké!"  
  
For once Sanji can't resent Zoro's fixation on alcohol. It makes Zoro not so much push through the crowd as plough it, ridiculous strength thrusting aside anyone in his wake like loam before the blade and leaving a clear path for Sanji to follow. A good thing, because there's only two jars on the counter with 'vanilla extract' on their labels. Sanji is quick to grab them both, then gasps with delight when he sees the other treasures laid out across the counter: fresh cinnamon bark, roasted vanilla beans, fragrant cloves, tiny vials of saffron. He breaths deep the welcome scent of spices and flowers and his nose twitches, his mouth waters. These are fresh, incredibly, _seductively_ fresh! Better than anything he'd ever got at the Baratie. His hands begin to flit between the displays with a mind of their own.  
  
Zoro, of course, is quick to snatch one of the tiny cups of free saké. Sanji's expecting him to down the shot and reach for a second, but instead he holds the brew in his mouth. Swallows slowly, eyes drifting closed. But before Sanji can poke at him for his odd display of restraint, lovely Robin-chan slips up beside them to examine one of the potted orchids.  
  
"How beautiful," she murmurs. Her pale hands, so much like flowers themselves, cradle the enormous orange bloom.  
  
Sanji smiles at her gently. "Shall I buy it for you, Robin-chan?" It's so rare to see her tender side turned toward something other than a history book or a ruin, the world having stripped her down to bare necessities, scoured her until she was nothing but her passions and her fears. She's better now. Certainly nothing like she used to be when she first joined them. But Sanji can't forget her face when she realized he brews coffee for her and only for her. Because he wants to. Because she enjoys it. So surprised that someone would give her something special just to see her happy.  
  
She shakes her head regretfully. "I'm afraid a tropical plant like this won't survive on our ship. Orchids are delicate flowers."  
  
At this, one of the sellers butts in. "Less than you might think," he says, stroking the long pink braid of his goatee. He's an older man with enormous braided eyebrows and a long pink braid of hair hanging down his back, the great multi-coloured crown of flowers wound around his head leaving smears of pollen over his wrinkled cheeks. "There are orchids from the island of Ambrwazee. They're not just beautiful, miss, they're hardier and longer lived then their cousins. Comes from being descended from the island's god."  
  
"From a god? Are they angel blossoms, then?" Brook has joined them and bends down and down to peer at the orchid as well. "Certainly they are lovely enough! They are a delight to my eyes, even though I have none! Yo ho ho ho!"  
  
"You- guh- ga-" says the seller. His mouth moves but nothing comes out, voice killed by this sudden spectre of death before him with petals in its afro.  
  
"If they're angel blossoms then I should buy one for both Robin-chwan and Nami-swan~" croons Sanji, awash in the fantasy his favourite ladies with enormous white wings and glittering gold halos, soft shifts of translucent white silk clinging to every heavenly curve . . .  
  
Then Zoro says, "More god bullshit?" and that's it, the dream is gone, leaving only the faint sound of saints crying.  
  
"Are you some kind of avatar of blasphemy?" Sanji demands. "How the fuck can one man be so ruinous to everything beautiful and good?"  
  
"I thought you were a cook, not a gardener! Why are you so pissed I insulted their flower god?"  
  
"Maybe I just wish I could go five minutes without hearing you vomit up stuff no one wants to hear!"  
  
Robin-chan gently draws the seller's attention back to her with, "Won't you tell me about this god of orchids?"  
  
It takes a moment, the old man blinking and working his mouth, face on autopilot as his brain races to catch up, but finally he manages to stammer, "Ah, not- not just a god of orchids, a god of plants. All plants. It's blessed Ambrwazee for centuries now. It's the reason that we can grow all these spices in high quality and in such quantities." His voice becomes stronger as he falls into what's obviously his marketing spiel, "The island of Ambrwazee actually supplies nearly one sixth of spices for the entire world! Despite our position on the Grand Line, trade ships from every ocean seek out our docks-"  
  
"At what price," asks Zoro, slicing through the sales pitch the way he does cannon balls, tsunami waves, enemy galleons and anything else that irritates him.  
  
Sanji rolls his eyes. "Not every god is like Enel, you dumb fuck."  
  
"Perhaps. But I've yet to hear of one that doesn't demand tribute," says Robin, her voice mild but her gaze watchful.  
  
The seller frowns at them for a moment. "Tribute? Ah, You must mean the Orchid Festival!" The curtain of his wrinkled cheeks are swept wide by an enormous grin showing crooked white teeth. "Did you hear of it from the rest of the crowd? It's taking place in only a few weeks, you know! We've been giving away Eternal Log Posts to help promote it!"  
  
"A festival! Oh, I love a good party," trills Brook. "Food and dancing and singing! There is singing, isn't there?"  
  
The seller laughs. "Until all hours of the night and the streets ring with it. You can even hear it from the neighbouring islands, so it's a good thing it's only every twenty years."  
  
"Once a generation?" Robin-chan's eyes narrow as her interest sharpens. "How unusual. Fertility rites tend to take place annually with the seasons. Is it because Ambrwazee is a Summer Island?"  
  
"I don't know about that," the old man says. "But if I had to guess it's more because of the Virgin Sacrifice."  
  
Sanji promptly tries to climb over the stall counter and trample the old man. " _You deranged bastard! How can you be so casual about the murder of innocent maidens?!_ "  
  
"It's not like that! _It's not like that!_ " the seller yelps and he's a lucky old man because Robin-chan is intrigued enough to bar Sanji's attack with a single smooth white arm.  
  
"Let's hear the rest of the details before jumping to conclusions, Cook-san."  
  
Sweet request from his wise lady! How can he refuse? "Of course, Robin-chwan~! Forgive me, I'm afraid I was carried away by my rage at thought of savage island priests attacking you!"  
  
"There's no need for you to worry about that, Cook-san. I'm not a virgin."  
  
And Sanji misses the next bit of conversation because blood fountains from his nose and he falls back against the counter top in a swoon, mind howling but one thought: _Robin-chan is a woman of experience!_  
  
The vision of her in vanilla lace is blown away by the deep, dark chocolate of adulthood. Tight corset and thigh high boots in black leather, scarlet panties like a cherry dipped in cocoa fondue. Knowing eyes and knowing hands, so many, many hands, all filled with the skill and strength of a woman who's specialty is assassination. She's throttled countless foes with those long fingers, and the thought of them on his skin, riding the edge of pain and pleasure until she bestows death or mercy, has him hemorrhaging out his nose in a great red gush of passion and shameful lust. "Robin-chwaaaaaann~~~" he moans.  
  
Fingers curl in his hair and yank his head roughly to the side, but he's grateful when he's told, "You're bleeding on the spices, pervert cook."  
  
"Shit! Fuck!" He gropes in his pockets for the tissues he always carries and stuffs some into his nostrils. "How much of a mess did I make?"  
  
"Not too bad. Just the stuff in bottles."  
  
"Oh, good." The thought of what Zeff would say if he found out how near Sanji had come to ruining food is enough to finish the cure. The nosebleed stops and Sanji's erection wilts like week-old lettuce. "Thanks, Marimo. Now kindly _get your dirty fingers out of my hair!_ " He sends a kick rocketing at Zoro's face to enforce his polite request.  
  
It's blocked by one of Zoro's sheathed swords, more's the pity. "Tch. Try again when you aren't woozy from blood-loss. Maybe then I'll actually feel something."  
  
Sanji doesn't bother with a retort. His attention has been recaptured by the seller, who is in deep conversation with Robin-chan. "-good friends the last sacrifice, actually. Wonderful lady. Always has orchids in her hair. She's got a teahouse on Pistolero island now."  
  
"She's still alive?" Sanji demands.  
  
"Yes, of course," snaps the old man. "We're not barbarians, you know! We don't murder people!"  
  
Brook says, "It seems that 'virgin sacrifice' is a bit inaccurate. A better name would probably be 'virginity sacrifice,' though I confess that doesn't have quite the same ring to it."  
  
"Ritual deflowering," says Robin-chan, her voice taking on an authoritative tone. "An excellent tribute to fertility and present in several religions. Also often incorporated into coming of age and marriage ceremonies. But you said that the natives are forbidden from participating?"  
  
"It's a festival for spreading seeds, not for hoarding them," says the vendor with an expansive gesture. "We want the blessing of the god to reach out to other islands just like pollen on the wind. That's why only someone who's a come-from-away can enter the raffle."  
  
"A raffle? So you have to buy a ticket?" Robin-chan asks.  
  
The old man shakes his head and patiently explains, "No, they're free to anyone who's eligible. It's not a money making venture. The raffle was only instituted because we had so many volunteers. It's considered very good luck to be chosen, and beside that you get free food and drink for the duration of the festival, and the sacrifice itself is apparently extremely enjoyable." The seller gets a dreamy look in his eyes, a different kind of smile creeping across his wrinkled old face. "Miss Petri certainly seems to think so. She was most enthusiastic about demonstrating the finer points."  
  
"What a glorious burden to have as one's duty the initiation of innocent maidens into the realm of adults," croons Brook, clasping his hands together and sighing gustily, and Sanji is right there with him.  
  
"I wonder if it's too late to declare a vocation?" he mumbles, imagining himself robed and ordained, a lovely maiden, innocent and willing, spread out on the alter before him. Fuck, he can feel the heat in his cheeks and his nose again, and sternly tells himself to stay in control. Pats himself down for a cigarette. Lights it with shaking hands.  
  
"Indeed! I'd rush right off to this island myself, but alas I fear I'd be ineligible, for though I am all bones, I have no bon-"  
  
A brief blizzard of petals swirls about the group as Brook goes down to a solid punch from Zoro.  
  
"Thank you," chorus Sanji and Robin-chan.  
  
"Whatever." Zoro frowns. He thumbs his lower lip almost absently. "Free drink, huh. Like that saké?"  
  
Sanji makes little clouds of cigarette smoke as he snickers. "Lush. Too bad you're not exactly a maiden. Or are you thinking of turning okama just for a drink?"  
  
"No, no, there's no need for anything like that," the vendor says. "It's not just for women. Any virgin can enter the raffle. The winner eighty years back was a young man. We always get more women than men, though, since men seem more shy about admitting to virginity."  
  
"Tch. Stupid," Zoro declares. He's back to touching his mouth, gaze distant and unfocused.  
  
The vendor is watching him now. There's a strange smile hovering around those wrinkled old lips and too much interest in his eyes for Sanji's taste. Zoro is a dumb-fuck asshole but he's also crew. Sanji's not about to let him get himself (and everyone else when Zoro inevitably drags them in after) into something stupid just for booze. Besides, Robin-chan is a worldly woman, but Nami-san is still innocent in the ways of man and maid, and must absolutely be protected from the temptations of such a raffle.  
  
At least it's a disaster easily prevented. "Well, you're not a virgin and Nami-swan would never-"  
  
"I am a virgin."  
  
Surprise chokes Sanji on his own spit. "You?!"  
  
Zoro is a virgin? Zoro with the amazing tits -pecs, Sanji corrects himself quickly- and the broad, muscled shoulders, the washboard abs and the incredible obliques that form a perfect arcing triangle to his groin? With the round ass and the dimples just visible at the base of the spine if you catch him without his ugly haramaki? Zoro who's eternal scowl can't hide the clean, chizelled lines of his face?  
  
"Yeah," says Zoro.  
  
" _How?!_ " Sanji spent years listening to customers and staff at the Baratie wondering if the Demon of East Blue was a demon in bed as well, has personally seen heads turn and eyes do slow, appreciative scans.  
  
Zoro lifts an eyebrow. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"  
  
And this might be dangerous ground but Sanji can't stop himself from blurting, "What about Johnny and Yosaku?" Because even if Zoro never noticed anyone else there were those two idiots who looked at him with stars in their eyes and wood in their pants, and didn't the three of them travel together for a few months? How could they not have-? Not even a quick handjob?  
  
But Zoro's frowning at him now, a puzzled quirk of the lips, a deep furrow between his brows, and when he speaks it's to ask, "What about them?"  
  
"It's a miracle," says Sanji. He takes a deep drag on his cigarette, blows smoke out his nose in a breath heavy with awe and exasperation. "You are actually dumber then I thought. They wanted to fuck you, you idiot!"  
  
It's a bit odd to watch a man with one eye do a slow blink.  
  
"They did?" Zoro cocks his head. "Huh. So that's why-" he breaks off. His frown deepens. "Why didn't they just ask?"  
  
Sanji buries his face in his hands. "I hate you so much."  
  
The soft, musical sound of Robin-chan's laughter cuts off Sanji's budding tirade. "Such an unexpectedly innocent side to you, Swordsman-san. It's quite charming."  
  
Jealousy curdles in Sanji's stomach. It's sour in on his tongue and in his heart, and it gushes out his mouth in spiteful words: "Fuck it. Maybe we _should_ go to Ambrwazee. Then their shitty plant god can take pity on a shitty mosshead and get you laid. Or are you too _embarrassed_ about your precious virtue to actually participate in the raffle?"  
  
Zoro's answering glare is poisonous enough to wilt every flower in the market. "Oi, old man. You said you were giving away Eternal Log Posts as a promotion, right?"  
  
You could grease all the cogs in Alabasta's clock tower with the oil in the old vendor's words as he purrs, "Yes, indeed."  
  
"Gimme one." Zoro pauses, daring anyone to comment. Then adds almost as an afterthought, "And a bottle of that saké."


	2. Chapter 2

Sanji's not used to feeling guilt over how he treats the Mosshead, so it takes him a while to pin down what the uncomfortable, gnawing feeling in the back of his mind is.  
  
Surprisingly, it's Usopp who brings things into proper perspective. It's been several days since they left Mayshee, the Thousand Sunny is well on its way toward Ambrwazee, and by now everyone on the ship has heard about the raffle and how Sanji goaded Zoro into agreeing to enter.  
  
Luffy's extremely excited. For the food, for the party, and for Zoro to win.  
  
"But it's a raffle, Luffy-san," Brook had objected. "Since the outcome is random I fear it's likely Zoro-san will not win."  
  
"He will," said Luffy in the that strange tone he gets sometimes, the one that seems to reshapes reality with every word he speaks, his teeth and tongue carving out a new path to someplace impossible. Sanji hadn't known what to make of it that Luffy would bother to care so much about something so ridiculous, but Franky had started chortling about a man's coming of age, and Brook had started crooning love songs, so Sanji had retreated to the peace and quiet of the kitchen to sort through his new stock.  
  
And yes, maybe he'd noticed Usopp looking troubled at the story and muttering to himself, but Usopp looks troubled and mutters to himself when it's his turn to do the laundry or he's run out of elastic bands or he's gotten a splinter.  
  
What's not normal is for him to _stay_ troubled. For him to lurk about the ship and linger at the dinner table after everyone else has gone.  He watches Sanji almost constantly, his gaze heavy against the cook's back, and more than once he's started to say something only to choke on his own nerves and scuttle off.  
  
"If I'm not bothering you-"  
  
Or,  
  
"About that thing with Zoro-"  
  
Or,  
  
"I was just thinking-"  
  
Sanji smokes pack after pack and firmly grinds down on his temper. Yelling, fighting, direct confrontation - that'll just make Usopp bottle things up, and that's not something Sanji wants. Usopp might be three parts whining and two parts bitching, but there's also a lot of other things in that cocktail of a man, and if Water 7 taught Sanji anything it's to respect the power of that volatile mix.  
  
Whatever is on Usopp's mind it's important enough for him to make the effort to wrestle with himself again and again despite his failures to actually say anything. The least Sanji can do is respect that struggle and wait for Usopp to finish fighting his internal battle. Usopp's not weak. He's just . . . a little slower to win.  
  
Sanji's patience pays off. They're so near Ambrwazee now that they can smell it on the winds, a scent of flowers and fruit utterly unlike the light floral breeze of Mayshee. It fills the ship, hot and sweet and sticky like honey, and the crew all sweat and gasp and marinade in its perfume.  
  
Sanji's made gallons of cooling cucumber water and people have been in and out of the galley all day for it, so when someone comes in late that evening after supper he's already turning to offer a glass.  
  
"Um, thanks," says Usopp as he takes the drink. "You, um. Don't look very busy . . . Not that I mean you're lazy of that you don't have anything to do but-"  
  
"I'm not busy," Sanji interrupts. Usopp's finally managed more then a few words for this conversation, so maybe now he's ready. "Have a seat." He considers offering to lock the door but decides against it. Usopp's the type to take a locked door more as entrapment than as private safety.  
  
Usopp sits at one of the chairs near the middle of the table, sets down his drink, pokes at the ice in it. Sanji settles by the kitchen sink and smokes, watching the grey curls drift out the window and dissipate. His own brand of incense.  
  
For a long while the sound of the ocean and the clink of ice in Usopp's glass are the only sounds in the galley. It's a nice moment. Soothing. Sanji feels the tension in his shoulders ebb, and maybe Usopp can see it because when he speaks next he's much more confident.  
  
"I wanted to talk to you about that raffle thing with Zoro," he says.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah. About. You know." Usopp grips the table edge. It's nothing like Zoro's power that destroys anything it touches. This is all too Usopp, a grip that turns his strength inward to ravage his own body, whitening his knuckles and making his nails bend and chip. "Being a virgin."  
  
Sanji keeps his attention on blowing the most perfect of smoke rings. Does his best to keep his voice low and soothing. "Go on."  
  
More silence. It stretches between them, layering the already stagnant air with heavy tension. Sanji feels a bead of sweat slip down his throat to soak into the collar of his button-up.  
  
When Usopp speaks again it's almost too quiet to hear over the creak and groan of the ship. "You aren't usually the kind of guy to make fun of someone for something they haven't done."  
  
No wonder Usopp picked a chair near the middle of the table. It's not just him sitting there, it's all his issues and insecurities, crowded around like a parody of a family dinner.  
  
"Ah," says Sanji. And, "shit."  
  
"Not everyone is like you. I'm . . . waiting for Kaya." Usopp says it defiantly, even proudly, despite the red stain to his cheeks. "Not that I think we'll get married or have kids or anything like that it's just . . . I want . . ." His voice trails off. "A-anyway. You shouldn't- I mean, I don't think you should- Zoro's probably never even _thought_ about sex before and he gets really stupid about your fights and-"  
  
"And I shouldn't have pushed someone who's probably not ready."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Sanji echos him, "Yeah." Nods to himself. This is what's been at the back of his mind like a rat in the pantry.  
  
It's so rare to find a chink in Zoro's armour that Sanji hadn't even thought before exploiting it, and jealousy had made him twist the knife. But pushing someone like Zoro -powerful, vicious, _dangerous_ Zoro- into something as charged as sex before he's ready could have all kinds of consequences. He could really hurt someone.  
  
The thought comes unbidden: He could really hurt himself.  
  
And, oh, there's not just Usopp's ghosts at the table now. Sanji's own spectre has taken a seat, the dark memory of Zoro after Kuma's attack, wrecked and ravaged and insisting that _nothing had happened._  
  
If something does go wrong, would they ever even know?  
  
Sanji scrubs a hand across his face. "The problem is that if anyone tries to change his mind he'll take it as challenge to his conviction and just go at it harder. The best we can hope for at this point is to minimize any damage. And since this is . . . _partially_. . . " The effort of forcing the words out tears at his throat until he can taste blood, a copper tang that burns with every word. "My fault . . . I  . . . I _guess_ I can . . . " Wet scarlet drips out the corner of his mouth and he swipes it away roughly with his thumb. ". . . look after that rock-brained, moss-haired moron." He spits into the sink, his pride and his blood a bitter mixture.  
  
Usopp eyes him, a worried furrow between his eyebrows and the hint of a reluctant smile on his lips. "You sure?"  
  
"A man's gotta take responsibility for his mistakes."  
  
"That's true. Well, I'm glad you're going to do it, Sanji. Not that I couldn't have, as I happen to be one of the foremost experts on relationship advice and intimate matters but-"  
  
"Usopp."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You were almost cool a few moments ago. Don't ruin it."  
  
"Yeah, okay."  
  
"And get the fuck outta my kitchen. I've got a lot to think about."  
  
Usopp is up and moving before Sanji's finished talking. "Going!"  
  
Sanji doesn't watch him go. His eyes are filled with the memory of that vendor's odd smile.  
  
Now that he's actually thinking and not just reacting he can see the red flags waving merrily all over this situation. So what if that guy said that the sacrifices aren't killed? They only have his word for it, don't they, and it's not as if it'd be easy to double-check in a place like the Grand Line. Pistolero island could be anywhere. Could be nowhere, just a name made up on the spot. And even if they find it and find this Miss Petri, how do they know it's the same Miss Petri that played sacrifice?  
  
Only 'someone who's a come-from-away' can enter the raffle. A stranger. An outsider. Someone no local will miss.  
  
Sanji stews over it, his anxiety like a low flame that bubbles and boils his worries down to mush, as shapeless and revolting as overcooked veg, food for thought wasted. Disgusting. He's forced to toss the whole thing and start from scratch.  
  
No more letting himself get bogged down in speculation. Time to go to their expert.  
  
Not empty handed, of course. Bad enough he's made such an ass of himself and now has to babysit their resident mossmonster, worse that he's going to impose on a lady for her help, but to show up at her door without a suitable tribute? Unthinkable. He'd shave off his eyebrows before committing such rudeness.  
  
And so it's with a laden tray that he makes his way to the library the next evening. On it there's a bowl of coffee, strong and black and delicately spiced with cinnamon and cocoa, and beside it a mille feuille with vanilla custard, fresh strawberries lined up across its top. It's not much, so Sanji makes sure to blow smoke hearts as he twirls through the door, serenades Robin-chan with his sweetest voice.  
  
"Robin-chwaaaaaan~~~ You're looking absolutely beautiful tonight! So scholarly and wise surrounded by your books! Just looking at you makes me feel so much smarter."  
  
She's sitting at the library's central table, a trio of books spread out before her, her personal journal open as she takes notes on whatever she's reading. She sets her quill aside and looks up to smile at him. "An interesting placebo effect. Perhaps we should tell Doctor-san."  
  
"I would be happy to participate in a case study if it means spending more time with Robin-chwan." He sets the tray down on the table, careful of books and journal and ink pot.  
  
He always likes the way she picks up the coffee bowl. Her hands cradle it like a precious relic, her fingers careful on the ceramic, then tightening in pleasure when she breaths in the rich, bitter scent of the brew. Today she quirks an eyebrow, easily catching his little extra touches. He holds his breath for her first experimental sip, then finds himself having to discreetly readjust his pants when his efforts are rewarded with her purr of pleasure.  
  
"This is delightful, Cook-san. Are the spices those you purchased at Mayshee?"  
  
"Yeah!" He can't help the grin that widens his face. It's such a joy to talk about his latest treasures. "Amazing, right? There's just nothing like the fresh stuff, and these are from top notch harvests besides. It's a shame it's so hard to get them like this regularly."  
  
She uses the silver fork and knife he's provided to set the mille feuille on its side and begins the delicate process of slicing it, the flaky pastry and and soft custard giving way beneath the blade. He likes this habit of hers, too. Neat slices, perfect cuts. An assassin skill made into something mundane? He blows a long plume of smoke and wonders. Watches her chew slow so she can savour, swallow. Drink more coffee. The working of her slender throat. He wishes he could kiss it. Press his lips to the warm skin and feel her pulse.  
  
"You'll at least have a second opportunity once we reach Ambrwazee," she says at last.  
  
"Yeah . . ." He hesitates, then shrugs. It seems as good a lead in as he'll get. "About Ambrwazee. Robin-chwan, do you think that this virgin sacrifice business is, you know . . . dangerous?"  
  
"You mean an actual blood rite instead of mere symbolism? I sincerely hope so." Her eyes go vague and dreamy. "True virgin sacrifice has been in decline for centuries, and the societies that still practice it make certain to do so in the deepest secrecy. To witness such a rite would be a rare opportunity. To actually participate in some way would be priceless."  
  
"Robin-chwan is so lovely when she's caught up in the spirit of scientific enquiry," says Sanji with a weak little laugh. "You know Zoro might not win the raffle, though, right?"  
  
The smile she turns on him then is one he is sure has been the last sight of many a poor victim of Miss AllSunday. "Oh, but our captain would be so disappointed if Swordsman-san didn't win."  
  
Well, shit. He sighs, blowing out smoke and the shreds of any hope that Robin-chan would help him stop this. "You're so considerate of that ungrateful rubber brat's feelings, Robin-chwan." And if Zoro doesn't win through some well engineered 'luck' then it'll be proof there _is_ an island god, because only a legitimate miracle will keep Robin from getting what she wants when she's in this mood.  
  
He picks up the tray and heads for the door. The beginning of a stress headache is throbbing at his temples. Some hot tea for himself, maybe?  
  
He's just turning the handle when Robin-chan calls out to him, "Cook-san."  
  
He spins, ready to offer whatever service she desires. "Yes, wondrous Robin-chwan?"  
  
She nibbles a slice of strawberry. Looks at him with those dark eyes twinkling in mischief. "Don't worry _too_ much. Though there's undoubtedly a hook in this bait, it is unlikely to be fatal. An event so popular that they were forced to institute a raffle would garner far too much attention for them to do something unpleasant to the sacrifice without everyone finding out. Of course," she continues with that wicked, laughing tone of hers, "there's always the faint possibility of some Devil Fruit ability in the mix. But that's what watchful nakama are for, neh?"  
  
"Yes, Robin-chwan," he groans. Total defeat.  
  
He slinks off to the kitchen. Fuck the hot tea. This is a gin and bitters situation.


	3. Chapter 3

Ambrwazee's port city is a mass of white stucco buildings and brights splashes of countless flowers, making Sanji think of nothing so much as an enormous fruit parfait. The sweet breeze does nothing to dispel the impression - he can catch the scent of melon and papaya, banana, litchi, coconut. Countless flowers.  
  
Vanilla.  
  
It seems the vendor was telling the truth about how popular this festival is, at least, because the harbour is positively swarming with ships of all sizes and shapes, enormous bees hungry for the island's nectar. The Sunny bumbles among them in a slow and winding path until the docks finally come into view, and with them, the outskirts of the festival oozing out from the center of town like honey.  
  
It's a chaos of dancing, pushing, jumping, singing, drinking, eating, selling and fighting people, all of them dressed in brightly coloured sarongs and flower wreaths, with petals swirling everywhere and streaming pennants being flown over the throng by enormous tropical birds of bright saffron and scarlet.  
  
Brook is already dancing on the railing of the forecastle, arm and arm with Luffy as they carol nonsense ditties in tune with the half-musical drone of the crowd that's so intense it shakes the Sunny's ropes and makes the pulleys rattle. Sanji can barely hear sweet Nami-san's voice hollering orders to Franky and Usopp as she graciously aids them in maneuvering into a free dock space.  
  
The heat is just as bad, the swelter of a Summer island enhanced by the great press of bodies and the thousands of cooking stalls, by the humidity in this wet tropical climate and the ocean all around. All of the crew are already sticky, a fact that delights Sanji no end when he realizes Nami-san's breasts are gleaming and wet, when he sees Robin-chan's white blouse clinging to her like a second skin. Coconut water will be a must to keep them both from wilting with dehydration, and Sanji is already looking for a convenient stall by the docks before he remembers he'll have other duties to attend to this landing.  
  
Fucking Zoro ruins everything even when Sanji's being gracious enough to look after him.  
  
The air _reeks_ , no longer sweetly perfumed with fruit and flowers but by the partying throng and the cooking stalls. It's the scents of Mayshee's market multiplied by a hundred, by a thousand, underlaid with bruised and spoilt fruit, spilt rum, burnt incense offerings and the sweat of every writhing body on the docks.  
  
Chopper whimpers softly and stuffs a pair of Usopp-made plugs into his poor, sensitive nose, but Luffy breaths it all in so deep he swells like a balloon. Exhales in a great gust. "It smells so good! Nah, Zoro! _Zoro!_ "  
  
"Mmm?" The first mate doesn't even bother to crack open his eye. He's wedged himself up against the foremast, napping in the shade, oblivious to Luffy's elongated arm arcing toward him like a hungry snake.  
  
"C'mon, I'll shoot us over there. We can eat and find the raffle thingy!"  
  
_That_ gets the lazy fuck's attention, jerking him upright from his slouch, his eye popping open and his teeth gritted against the expected upcoming impact. Any other time Sanji would have sat back and enjoyed the sight of Zoro's horror-filled face as he was yanked into Luffy's hold, but even that simple pleasure is denied to him: if Luffy drags that green tumbleweed into the crowd there's no way Sanji will ever find him again . . . and every chance that he'll wander into the worst possible place at the worst possible time.  
  
And so it is with a heavy heart that Sanji pins Luffy's wiggling hand to the deck with a well-placed stomp. "Take Usopp with you. I'm taking Marimo to the raffle to make sure he gets his name right on the forms." And when Usopp looks ready to protest Sanji gives him a look ripe with unspoken significance and adds, " _I was reminded_ that the mosshead might need help with it."  
  
"Oh. Right," Usopp agrees. Laughs weakly behind the defencive screen of his raised hands when Zoro sends a heated glare his way.  
  
Zoro's still scowling as he climbs to his feet. "You assholes don't have to fucking stalk me. I said I'd do it and I will."  
  
"We know you will," Sanji says. His words come out short and clipped, and he turns away from how Zoro's gaze has gone from searing to searching. "Better get going, Luffy. You don't want to get there after all the meat's gone."  
  
" _GYAH!_ No, not my meat! Okay-see-you-all-later, c'mon-Usopp!" spills from Luffy's mouth and then he's gone, already flinging himself into the crowd, Usopp's scream trailing behind them like a festival banner all Luffy's own.  
  
"Yo ho ho ho ho! I believe I shall follow. Does anyone else wish to come along? Chopper?"  
  
The little reindeer shakes his head. "Nuh uh. I'm on ship watch! Which I'm pretty happy about this time, honestly. This is worse than Alabasta." He rubs at his blue nose, gone a little purple with a hot, irritated flush. Then he bites his lip and ducks his head, peers up from under the brim of his hat. "Just. You'll bring me some candy from the festival, right?"  
  
"But of course! A fitting reward for our most vigilant of ship minders."  
  
"Sh-shut up! Don't try to butter me up, asshole! It's not gonna work!"  
  
"I would never dream of it," says Brook, giving the little doctor a grand, sweeping bow.  
  
Franky has joined the group at this point, rolling his shoulders to loosen the gears. "You bend any more and you'll fold right over him, Brook!" He whistles sharply. " _OW!_ Look at that _SUPER_ party! If you're looking for someone to go with, I'll gladly partner up." He presses his nose and a brilliant aqua mohawk fountains from his skull. "Franky party docking formation number nineteen! Robin, do you-"  
  
The ship is suddenly bathed in a refreshing breeze as the winter chill of Robin's disdain washes over them all. "What did I say about docking?"  
  
Franky's mohawk wilts into a dispirited undercut. "R-right. Let's go, Brook."  
  
Nami-san watches them leave with a satisfied little smile. "That gets rid of those two idiots. Now then . . . " She turns to give Zoro a delightfully calculating glance. "If I know pirates, there's going to be gambling. And if there's gambling, someone will have set up betting on who's going to win that raffle."  
  
"Oi! I'd said I'd enter! No one said anything about me winning you money! I might not even get picked," he protests, backing away from her.  
  
He only gets a few steps before he runs into Robin-can, who presses close and whispers into that lucky. fucking. asshole's ear, "But Captain-san is counting on you to win."  
  
Zoro goes stone still.  
  
And that jealous little demon in Sanji's heart sees the way Robin-chan's breasts press against ungrateful dickweed's back, the way her breath makes those three ridiculous earring sway and that's it, fuck Usopp and his guilt trip, Sanji is gonna twist this knife until it _hurts_. "I thought you swore you'd never lose again," he purrs.  
  
"Go die."  
  
"You wanna face him and explain how you failed?"  
  
It feels good, it feels so good to see the bastard's stoic façade crumble like bad cornbread at Sanji's words, but it's Nami-san who really deals the deathblow. "Tell you what: any winnings from my bets will go toward what you owe me."  
  
"You're all going to hell," hisses Roronoa Zoro, and surrenders.  
  
~  
  
When Sanji was fifteen he'd caught a terrible case of Red Genie, a nasty virus named for the burning fevers and euphoric hallucinations it inflicted on the sufferer. Sanji had spent two weeks confined to his bunk on the Baratie, aching in every joint and sweating fit to make a soup of himself while his feverish mind, awash in the hormones of puberty and boiling with the flames of sickness, came up with the most incoherent and incredibly arousing scenarios he's ever had the misfortune of imagining. To this day he can't quite look a nautilus in the face.  
  
Making his way through the throng on Ambrwazee island is _exactly_ like that.  
  
This heat, this wet press of bodies - he might as well be a pot roast. Around him flows the whirl of nonsense colours of flower crowns and flashy sarongs worn by men and women alike, the men going bare-chested, the ladies with only the flimsiest of halter tops. The human jungle of bare skin and soft flesh writhes and presses against him. A hand grabs his ass as he's pushed along, then anonymous lips press to his shoulder. Breasts bush against him, rub against his arm, vanish like a dream. Here the mask of feasting and drinking finally falls away to show the true face of this festival: a fertility rite. A celebration of carnality in its purest form. Sex, intimate and anonymous, messy and passionate.  
  
Ahead of him walk sweet Nami-san and Robin-chan, arms around each other's waists, hips brushing, hair tangling. Almost pornographic to see their bodies pressed closed and moving together like that, but his passion is overwhelmed by rage when he realizes that Robin-chan is using her powers to defend them both against these lust-drunk swine.  
  
He tries to charge ahead but the press is too intense. Hands cling and draw him back, run through his hair, shred his suit jacket and rip open his button down shirt, cup his dick and make him stumble until he reminds himself sternly of his duty to his crewmates. "Nami-swaaaaan! Robin-chwaaaaaaan!" he howls, flames leaping in his eyes. Yet for all his efforts he's barely audible over the din of singing and moaning around them.  
  
But the forces of love can't be so easily thwarted. Something of his voice must have reached them because Nami-san glances back at him over her shoulder. Her stern face makes his heart flutter. She's like a goddess, unreachable and untouchable by a mortal like him, and he strains to hear her holy commands. She points at something behind him.  
  
Oh. That.  
  
He smiles feebly and holds up his hand, still wrapped around Zoro's wrist. It's embarrassing as fuck to have to keep the moron on such a tight leash, unpleasant to have to be skin to skin in this kind of sweaty heat with someone who bathes only once a week, but Nami-san had been extremely firm once she'd seen what kind of crowd this was, and Sanji would never think to disobey.  
  
His reward is a grin bright enough to rival the sun and ah, never mind the press of bodies around him, the tropical humidity, the heat wafting from the cooking fires of the food stalls. None of that can compare to the sudden blaze in his heart at having pleased Nami-san!  
  
She turns her attention away from him and his world goes a little colder, but it's just a passing cloud. She looks back at him almost instantly, and this time points to one of the shops off to their right.  
  
It's a three story building, white stucco like the others, but the arching frames of its windows and doors are painted to look like rainbows, and the sign above the main door reads Art-En-Ciel Fashions. Below that someone has tacked a scarlet banner that proudly declares: Official testing and registry office for raffle!  
  
Their little group swims its way into the shelter of the building. The difference is immediate: cool air, space to move around, only a smattering of people scattered about looking at the countless sarongs and halter tops hung on the walls of the store, the display of flipflop sandals off to one side. And quiet. Blessed, blessed quiet. Whoever soundproofed this place must have taken the festivals into account.  
  
A fat little man waddles over to them, barefooted and bare-chested, a dark blue sarong around his hips and his black hair in floor length pigtails braided with multicoloured ribbons. "Bon- _joor_ , bon- _joor!_ Oh, you look so _hot!_ So very _hot!_ Won't you buy one of my lovely sarongs and cool yourselves down? Or are you here to register for the raffle?"  
  
"We're here to do both," says Nami-san. "Though only one of us is registering. Zoro, come-" She pauses, looking at the swordsman. "Zoro?"  
  
Sanji is so used to ignoring the big lug that it's only now, seeing Nami-san's wide eyes, that he registers that there's something odd. The normally belligerent bit of bile has been incredibly tame about letting himself be led around by the hand, and Sanji turns to look at him with a mix of dread and anticipation.  
  
_Sunburn_ , is the first thought that pops into his head. Then, _Holy shit, they wrecked him_.  
  
Zoro's dark skin has flushed crimson from hairline down to the broad span of his shoulders, which have been put on magnificent display by whoever managed to yank the coat off the arm that Sanji's not holding onto. The fabric hangs loose about his hips, lower then normal since his haramaki has been pushed down to a thin, crumpled band to bare his six pack. Even the laces of his pants have been untied to let his fly be yanked open. He's not wearing underwear.  
  
The crowd obviously loved it. Loved _him_. There are scratches and lipstick kisses and bite marks -fucking _bite marks_ \- all over his chest and shoulders, an impressive hickey on his neck, his hair is in complete disarray, and dusting over all is the pollen from countless floral crowns giving him a soft golden haze.  
  
He stares back at Sanji silently, his scarred face transformed into something boyish by his blush, young and surprised and shy. His hand stays limp in Sanji's grasp. He's quiet. He's docile. He's . . . waiting for some clue how to react, Sanji realizes slowly.  
  
' _Not everyone is like you_ ,' Usopp had said, and the proof of it stands before Sanji now. He feels a brief, petulant burst of irritation that he has to waste his time look after a male virgin, and _this_ male virgin besides, before it's crushed beneath the memories of the Baratie and Zeff's watchful gaze, of growing up surrounded by men who saw and who knew and who explained in their own rough way.  
  
He gives Zoro's wrist a shake. "Oi, Mosshead. You okay in there?"  
  
Zoro stares at Sanji's fingers for a moment, then back at Sanji's face. Sense returns to his gaze and he straights up a bit, the bright flush fading from his skin. He tugs his wrist from Sanij's grip. "Yeah. Fine." He frowns. "Why the fuck did that guy keep asking me if I wanted sugar? You're the cook, not me."  
  
"Too much drinking," Sanji manages to say with a straight face. "D'you need a minute? Want to go lace your pants back up?"  
  
"Please, don't _bother_ , don't _bother_ ," interjects the little shopkeeper with an airy wave. "You'll be much better off if you change into one of my sarongs. And anyway, anyone who enters the raffle must wear the garb of a supplicant. It's wonderfully cool, you'll see, and will help prevent any accidents that might disqualify you." He points to a pair of wooden mannequins, male and female, both in sarongs of brilliant tangerine with scarlet rope belts wrapped tight about their hips, a wooden tag dangling from the knot. On their heads are wreaths of odd white flowers in the shape of long spikes. "No one will touch you if you're wearing that."  
  
Zoro sighs heavily. "I'm going to look stupid."  
  
"You always look stupid," says Sanji, and busies himself lighting a cigarette to hide his pleased grin at seeing Zoro bristle and snarl. Not that he was worried, but it's nice to know that the dumbass' sorry excuse for a brain is back to what it calls functionality.  
  
"We're all going to get changed," Nami-san declares. "The last thing we need is someone passing out from heat stroke in this crowd. We'd get trampled."  
  
"I would gladly carry you if you fainted, Nami-swan~" says Sanji immediately, but sweet Nami-san is in one of her business moods and is too busy to acknowledge his dedication.  
  
"Robin, you wear sarongs all the time, don't you? Why don't you look around for some extras." And to the shopkeeper, "Do you do dockside delivery?  
  
The little man's grin is wide and smug. "But of course! Who doesn't in this town? Ah, but if the moon- _siah_ is going to enter the raffle then we must register him. Please come this way."  
  
He waddles over to a table besides the cash register where several pots of budding flowers have been set out beside a pile of numbered wooden tags and paper forms.  
  
"Unicorn orchids," he tells them. "If the intended supplicant would be so kind as to touch one."  
  
Zoro raises a sceptical eyebrow, but obediently gives the nearest bud a poke. Its white petals immediately unfurl into a long, conical spiral.  
  
"Marvellous! Please fill out this form while I get your vestment ready."  
  
"How fascinating," says Robin-chan, peering closely at the flower. It's a delicate thing the length of an index finger, and its pale blossom has a subtle cream tinge just visible on the edges of each petal. "These are what the supplicants wear as flower crowns, are they not? Will they wilt if a sexually experienced person touches them, then?"  
  
"Oh yes. It makes it so tricky to care for them," the shopkeeper laments. "I'm a married man, you know. Here you are. Changing rooms are right over there, and don't forget to take a number tag with you." He thrusts a bundle of cloth into Zoro's arms.  
  
Sanji doesn't bother to watch the green haired lug go. He is much more interested in helping Robin-chan browse through the racks of red and violet cotton, in complimenting Nami-san's wonderful taste when she picks a lovely outfit in blue and green zebra stripes.  
  
"Shall I help you tie the halter top when you try it on, fair Nami-swan?" he offers as she holds it up in front of herself, peering into the floor length mirror by the shop windows.  
  
"No, thank you, Sanji-kun. Why don't you grab a sarong and get changed yourself? You can check on Zoro while you do."  
  
He wilts. Oh, to someday be considered a worthy supplicant for _this_ goddess. He'd wear any sort of flower crown if it meant being embraced on her alter. "Yes, Nami-swan."  
  
His cigarette smoke makes a sad little trail as he shuffles to the discreet back nook where the changing rooms are. Along the way he picks a sarong haphazardly, finds some flipflops, then goes to scan the bottom of the changing room curtains for a glimpse of ugly black work boots tossed aside.  
  
Ah. There. "What's the hold up in there? Marimo forget how to tie a knot?"  
  
"Not all of us spent time on an island of cross-dressers learning how to wear a skirt, pervert shithead!"  
  
Sanji yanks the curtain aside. "Say that to my face, asshole moss-" he stops.  
  
It's not that he's never seen Zoro in various stages of undress before. It's that Sanji's never seen him like _this_ , cheeks flushed and ears pinked, body marked with the traces of desire. No shapeless coat or ugly haramaki to hide his silhouette - all that he's wearing is the orange sarong, tied at the side the same way Robin-chan usually does, the bright fabric falling loose and free leaving the scarred length of Zoro's left leg bare. Dressed like this you can really see how narrow his hips are, how perfect the line of muscle along shoulder and neck.  
  
Somehow that simple drape of fabric has re-framed him, remade him, until he's not the battered swordsman Sanji knows but a beautiful body that's been handled too roughly, chipped and scratched by careless hands who don't understand its true worth.  
  
Including the idiot it belongs to. For the briefest of moments Sanji feels unexpected sympathy with Chopper's outrage over Zoro's training regime.  
  
He pushes the thought away. Obviously all the drunken hormones in the air are getting to him. Time to put the world back in order. "What's that about learning to wear a skirt?"  
  
"Fuck off. If I tie it like the one on the mannequin I can't move properly. And anyway, loads of guys out there are wearing it like this," Zoro snaps.  
  
"Of course, Marimo-chan," says Sanji, keeping his voice low and soothing. "Don't forget your pretty red belt, and here's some sandals to match."  
  
Zoro's retort is a single expressive digit raised and waved in Sanji's face before he goes back into the changing booth to grab the long red rope. He wraps it tight about his hips and wedges his katana sheaths into it, ties the numbered wooden tag into the knot. His bandanna goes around his arm, and then he sits down heavily on the little stool and motions for the flipflops.  
  
Sanji immediately bounces them off that think green skull. "For fuck's sake keep your legs closed when you sit." He does a quick scan of the area, sends up a quiet prayer that the other changing rooms are deserted and that Nami-san and Robin-chan are far toward the front of the store.  
  
The bastard just snorts and crams the sandals on his feet, and even has the gall to look more cheerful and relaxed. "Nothing you haven't seen before."  
  
"A sight that lives in my nightmares. Look, you're supposed to be a sacrificial virgin, not a showgirl, so have a little modesty!"  
  
"Being body shy's got nothing to do with virginity. And anyway, shouldn't it be the people putting their hands all over me who need to learn restraint? They're like a bunch of cats in heat. Though at least they're clear about what they want." His blush returns full force, so bright it looks painful, and his gaze drops to his clenched fists. "Really clear."  
  
Sanji says with careful nonchalance, "Yeah?"  
  
"It's different from what I expected," says Zoro, almost too quiet to hear. "It's not like what Sensei said. And it's weird to have people suddenly look at me like that." He hesitates. Adds, "Touch me like that."  
  
Sanji is now grateful for the privacy for a whole different reason. Shit, this is so awkward. "That's probably because idiot Marimo is diving into the deep end before he even knows how to swim. Like you said, the people here are all cats in heat. Crazy lust monsters. Of course it's like nothing you'd imagine. You barely even jerk off." And oh, how he wishes he didn't know that little fact, but it's hard not to realize a few things when you're trapped on a ship together for months on end and do each other's laundry. "Still, I'm kinda surprised you didn't find anyone to mess around with growing up. Most kids do."  
  
"The only person I would have wanted to try it with was dead."  
  
Sanji sucks in a deep breath. The hot smoke of his cigarette burns in his lungs, and he focuses on the heat and the ache to keep his face still. He doesn't want to know this. He doesn't want to see this side of Zoro, quiet and vulnerable. It reminds him too much of the scent of antiseptics, of endless reels of bandages, of carrying the idiot out of a crater filled with Zoro's own blood.  
  
Zoro is supposed to be untouchable.  
  
But he's not going to be if . . . when he wins this raffle. Someone -faceless, sexless, utterly unknown to Sanji- is going to put their hands all over Zoro, rub the planes of his belly and the smooth skin of his back, feel the tender crease between thigh and hip.  
  
Sanji spits out his cigarette. He's chewed the butt of this one to mulch.  
  
Zoro seems to take the flick of Sanji's lighter on a new smoke as the signal to get moving. He stands and gathers up the pile of his old clothing, moves past Sanji and out of the changing room area into the store proper. "What do I do with this stuff?"  
  
The shopkeeper comes over to them in a bustle of trailing braids and blue skirts. "You just give it to me. The lovely redhead has arranged to have all your things delivered to your ship." He takes a moment to eyes Zoro appreciatively. "Very _nice_ , very _nice_! The colour's amazing against your dark complexion. Mona-chan will give you your crown. Mona-chan! Come help daddy give out flowers!"  
  
A fat little girl with long black pigtails done up with multicoloured ribbons comes trundling out from the back room behind the cashier counter. She's four at the most, small enough to make her own pink sarong a sweeping dress instead of a skirt, and she carries a big crown of unicorn orchids cradled in her grubby little hands. She spots Zoro immediately and comes over to solemnly present him with his flower crown. Virgin to virgin, innocent to . . . innocent? Fuck, Sanji can't tell at this point.  
  
Why does everything have to bring home all the things he's hoping Zoro will lose on this island? The rat of guilt skitters through the back of his mind again and he's forced to look away. Sees Nami-san and Robin-chan watching Zoro and the little girl as well, and their eyes are strange and old, their smiles wistful. His heart twists, aches. He doesn't  understand this either. He wishes he did.  
  
Then Mona says, "I hope the god helps you grow nice flowers in your grass hair," and the solemn mood vanishes.  
  
Robin-chan's face lights with a smile. Nami-san giggles into the palms of her hands. Sanji grins so wide his cheeks hurt, feels his face start to cramp up when Zoro grits his teeth and growls a rough, "Thanks."  
  
It's too good to pass up. Sanji takes one of Mona's dirty little hands in his own and presses a kiss to the back of it. "With the blessing from a princess like Mona-chan, Zoro's sure to win and grow the prettiest blossoms."  
  
She blushes and her dark eyelashes flutter, her lips curve, a dimple peeps out on one cheek. For the first time Sanji notices the deep blue of her eyes. She's just a bud right now but she's going to grow up lovely. "Everyone who wins grows really pretty flowers," she tells him. "But people with grass hair grow the best ones. You can see them in the big painting of the winners."  
  
"There's a mural in the town square depicting all of the winners after they've been initiated," the shopkeeper tells them. "Since the winners are all come-from-aways we like to keep something to remember them by when they leave. It is mag- _nee_ -feek work. Goes back almost seven hundred years. So _worth_ it, so _worth_ it to go see, and it's easy to find since it's right beside the stage where they hold the raffle."  
  
"That's an astonishing record. And you say there are many winners with green hair?" asks Robin-chan. Her placid attitude is gone and in its place is her eternal passion for ancient customs, its fires giving her pale skin a healthy glow, her dark eyes sparkle.  
  
"Oh, yes. Grass hair has always been good luck on this island."  
  
"Is the mural well preserved? How-" Robin-chan is interrupted by a firm poke to the side by Nami-san.  
  
"Shopping first, paintings second," Nami-san says sternly. She tugs a lock of Robin-chan hair. "You're just as vulnerable to heat stroke as the rest of us, you know."  
  
Surprise flits across Robin-chan's face. Then she laughs. "Of course. Thank you for reminding me, Navigator-san."  
  
"Thanks, nothing. You owe me twenty beli for the good advice! It'll teach you not to forget to take care of yourself," Nami-san retorts, and sticks her tongue out.  
  
Smoke hearts float from Sanji's cigarette, carried on his appreciative sigh. The two of them are just so cute together. Intimate as sisters, and isn't that a thought? Robin-chan and Nami-san, curled up on a bed together, legs intertwined and hair tangled, soft breasts against soft breasts as they press close and whisper girlish secrets into each other's ears. And when Nami-san confesses, 'I've never-,' experienced Robin-chan will say, 'Let big sister teach you,' as a thousand pale fingers blossom under bed covers and stroke along Nami-san's warm skin and she'll gasp-  
  
"Sanji-kun."  
  
Oh! Oh god, yes, his name! Because she secretly-  
  
" _Sanji-kun!_ "  
  
"Nami-swan's punch is a thunderbolt of love," he croons, nursing the new lump on his forehead. "What can I do for you, sweet nymph of my heart?"  
  
"Get changed. And do it fast so _that_ ," she points a thumb at Zoro, who's leaning up against the front doorway and mumbling about how thirsty he is, "doesn't have time to wander off. We don't want him getting lost before he can win money for- I mean, win the raffle."


	4. Chapter 4

It's eerie. It's the same oppressive heat, the same humidity that chokes and clings. The crowd writhes around them drunk on a cocktail of alcohol and sex, and the air still thrums with their song, but the little knot of Straw Hats walks down the streets unmolested. Untouched. The crowd parts before them like the ocean before the Thousand Sunny's bow.  
  
 _Too bad our figurehead is such an ugly fucker_ , Sanji grumbles to himself. If only it had been Nami-san! "I'd follow your figure to the ends of the earth, Nami-swaaaaan~!" he crows.  
  
"What are you babbling about now?!" she hollers, straining her delicate voice to be heard.  
  
"Just declaring my undying devotion, Nami-swan!" he yells back.  
  
She rolls her eyes at him before turning away. Sanji wiggles and giggles to himself. She's so adorable when she gets huffy. Then he hisses at the back of Zoro's green head. Why does she have to have such a shit escort? Sure, he might be useful for getting the crowd to back off but he doesn't have to walk side by side with Nami-san! It's like they're a -Sanji gags at the thought- couple.  
  
And then Sanji chokes on his own cigarette smoke as Robin-chan leans in close, the silk of her black hair brushing his bare shoulder, the scent of her passionflower perfume making his head swim. "You're so jealous of our swordsman, Cook-san. Am I not enough of an escort for you?"  
  
"N-n-n-no! Of course not, Robin-chwan," he says, swooning a little. Dressed like the others in his own blue sarong, he's gloriously shirtless and able to feel the warmth of her nearness along every inch of his skin. She's almost touching him-! Bent close so her breasts, those wonderful, glorious mounds cradled in a red halter top, are at the perfect angle for him to see the soft crevasse he dreams of pressing his face into. "But a man like me-! I can't play favourites!"  
  
She's laughing at him but he likes it. It just feels so _good_ to make her happy, see her eyes glint when she teases. He'd like to make her smile for a thousand other reasons, in and out of bed, but right now this is good enough. Right now this is perfect.   
  
But the fires he lights in a woman's eyes never last. They flicker out and fade just like this one does, consumed before the blaze of something else entirely, something Sanji hasn't yet been able to match.   
  
Here and now it means they've come to the town's central square, and Robin's caught sight of the mural.  
  
"It's magnificent."   
  
He can't hear her say it but he reads the words on her lips easily enough. Sees the passion in her eyes, and finds himself abandoned by a lady yet again, spurned in favour of true love. He watches her go with a bitter twist to his lips. It'd be nice to have someone come to him like that someday.  
  
Heh. If he prays to this shitty plant god, will it make love bloom for him?  
  
It certainly seems to make everything else burst into flower. Now that he's not fending off groping hands or worrying about the girls he's finally able to take things in, only to discover that the colourful scenery is just as overwhelming as the crowd was. He'd thought Mayshee was a lush and vibrant place, but that little Spring island is anaemic compared to the incredible plethora of foliage on Ambrwazee. Every building is crowned with gardens in full bloom, with great cotton-candy masses of rhododendrons, the fiery spears of torch lilies, the arcing rainbow sprays of orchids, splashes of hibiscus and lantana.  
  
Passionflower vines drip down white walls. Jasmin coils up iron trellises. Even the trees are in bloom with the twirling pinwheel blossoms of frangipani, with the lilac fans of bottlebrush. The swaying, surging crowd seems half-plant themselves against this backdrop, a field of flowers tossed by the hot, wet breeze.  
  
The mural does nothing to dispel the impression. It's heavily stylized, more interested in detail and colour than in realism, and dozens of men and women seem to slink across its face in odd, sinuous profile, their sarongs flowing in impossible twirls, their heads half obscured by enormous crowns of orchids. Despite the flowers, though, you can still see that a good third of them do indeed have green hair.  
  
Sanji comes up to stand by Zoro and Nami-san.   
  
"Will you go with pink or yellow," he bellows at Zoro, pointing to the flower crowns on the mural.   
  
His answer is a bored glare and a, "Go light incense for your your dead love life, shit cook!"  
  
"We're here to light incense for yours, remember?"  
  
"Incense isn't going to cut it if we want to be sure to win," Nami-san declares. She yanks the two of them to her, Zoro on her one side, Sanji on the other, her arms around their shoulders to hold them close so she doesn't have to yell, but the thunder of Sanji's heart drowns her out.   
  
This close he can see the faint freckles on her nose like a dusting of cane sugar across the finest cream. Can see the delicate tremor of her pulse in her throat, the flecks of copper in her lovely brown eyes as she stares into his face and yells, "Pay attention, Sanji-kun!"  
  
"You are the centre of my world, Nami-swan!" he croons.  
  
"Yes, very nice, but that won't pay our bills," she says. "We've got expenses to meet. Now, I've spotted five likely places to lay some bets. Zoro, what's your number?"  
  
"Twenty seven."  
  
"Did the shopkeeper write it down on your form?" she asks.  
  
"Yeah, and a bunch of other stuff, too, so forget trying to steal someone else's tag."  
  
"Damn. That means rigging the actual raffle."  
  
"We could also sabotage the competition," says Sanji. Visions of virginal lovelies dance through his mind. Oh, to reveal the mysteries of love to them one after another, and all in the name of helping his sweet Nami-san! Could there be a better cause? "I volunteer to-gaaaaaah~" he wheezes, clutching his stomach.   
  
"Absolutely not!" Nami-san snaps.  
  
"Nami-swan doesn't . . . have to be so jealous . . . My heart . . . is only . . . yours . . ."  
  
"I don't want your heart, I want your body."  
  
Blood fountains from his nose. " _Nami-swan!_ I thought you'd never ask!" He drops to his knees beside her in worship, heart pounding, head spinning at this sudden confession. Or is it blood loss making him woozy? "Please, do with this flesh as you will!"  
  
She grabs his flailing hand and claps it around Zoro's wrist. "Good. Hold onto this for me until the raffle."  
  
It's no longer his nose bleeding, but his heart. "N-Nami-swan . . ."  
  
And yet that terrible wound is instantly healed when she cups his face in her hands. "Listen, Sanji-kun. Right now, Zoro's virtue is our greatest treasure! Gambling on the outcome of a raffle is risky, especially when there's so many participants, so the odds are always ridiculous. That means whoever wins, wins big! And since the only people I can count on to take this sort of thing seriously are you and Robin-chan, and I need her help to set up the scam, that leaves you to  look after our golden goose."  
  
"For fuck's sake, I can look after myself," Zoro snarls. He yanks his wrist from Sanji's hold and glares at them both. "And why do you have to rig the raffle anyway? Can't you just steal everyone's money the way you usually do?"   
  
"If I do that it will make our escape too complicated," she says with exaggerated patience.  
  
"Our escape," he parrots. "What escape?"  
  
"The one we have to make when you kill their stupid god, of course," snaps Nami-san.   
  
Sanji's head suddenly feels empty of thought, of understanding, of even words, and from the looks of things Zoro isn't much better.   
  
"K-kill it?" Zoro manages.  
  
Nami-san tosses her hair. "Well, of course. I mean, you have to enter the raffle because you said you would and you have to win because Luffy will be upset if you don't, but it's not like you're going to go through with the actual ceremony, right? You don't even pray to gods, so why should you let one bed you, or whatever it is they do in that temple?" She pauses. Really looks at Zoro, and a strange expression creeps across her face. "That was the idea, right? I mean- you didn't think I- That'd be like _selling_ you-"  
  
Zoro sort of shrugs, a weak motion of the shoulders totally unlike him. Looks away from her as he mumbles, "You've sold my skills before."  
  
"That's different! That- And you were going to let me-" She's sputtering, hands clenching at air. Her face pales, then flushes charming pink, and her lovely white teeth are on full display when she gnashes them in frustration. "You idiot! How could you? _How could you?!_ "  
  
"I said I'd do it."   
  
The slap is completely unexpected. It's a good hit, like all of Nami-san's are, snapping Zoro's head to the side and leaving him with a brilliant scarlet handprint tattooed across his face. And into the silence between the three of them Nami howls, " _THEN DON'T SAY THINGS LIKE THAT._ "  
  
She turns away from Zoro, face hidden in her hands. She is shaking. She says, "Sanji-kun. You're a boy. Make him understand."  
  
He touches her shoulder, just the faintest brush of fingers, mindful of how fragile she is right now. "Of course, Nami-san."  
  
He gets a glimpse of her face, of the tears in her eyes and her cheeks still flushed with anger and shame. "I'm going to go find Robin." She turns and vanishes into the crowd.   
  
Sanji takes a moment to take a deep drag on his cigarette, to blow smoke out his nose and with it, his rage at Zoro for having made Nami-san cry. He's moderately successful: instead of turning the idiot into a bloody smear across the cobblestones he just delivers his nastiest kick to the asshole's shin.   
  
"What the hell was that for?!" bellows Zoro, going for his swords.  
  
"How could you think of Nami-swan as a pimp?!"   
  
"Wha- You were thinking the same thing!"  
  
"Don't be stupid," Sanji yells, "The only thing I've been thinking about is you!"  
  
Zoro boggles at him. With his one eye wide like that and his mouth opening and closing he looks like the fish Sanji guts for their dinners.  
  
 _The resemblance is going to get a lot more pronounced if Mosshead doesn't knock it off_ , Sanji thinks grimly, telling himself that the heat smoldering in his cheeks and along the back of his neck is from sunburn and not any kind of embarrassment.   
  
Oh, but it's hard to keep that lie alive when Zoro lets go of his swords and steps in close, presses the soft inside of his wrist to Sanji's forehead and peers earnestly into Sanji's eyes.   
  
"I don't have a fever," snaps Sanji.  
  
He's answered by a deep scowl and, "Your face is all red. Maybe you have heatstroke."  
  
"I don't have heatstroke, either! I'm just boiling with rage that you think of Nami-swan as some sort of procurer! And you even as much as said so to her face! That sort of shit matters to a girl, you know! And what the hell are you doing, dragging me around like I'm a little kid?" He yanks petulantly against Zoro's hold. Those strong brown fingers don't give an inch, as good as manacles around Sanji's pale wrist. "You fuck up my hands and I'll skin you and salt you, asshole!"  
  
"We're going back to the ship so Chopper can look at you," Zoro says. By now they've wandered into less crowded back streets and can hear each other without yelling, though the noise is still a constant backdrop, rising and falling like the rush of waves on sand.  
  
Sanji rolls his eyes. "Oh, for- The docks are back in the opposite direction. Why the hell did you come this way?"  
  
"I was following the sound of water."  
  
A few more steps and they turn the corner into a dead end. Here there is a secluded little courtyard, surrounded on three sides by towering white stucco walls that go up four stories, their pale faces slashed with long windows that weep trailing flower vines and multicoloured curtains. There's a pair of wrought iron benches, a deep lotus-shaped fountain in the centre, and directly opposite from where they stand, what seems to be a shrine to the local god: a stone alcove containing a big pot of orchids, and offerings of incense, flowers, and fruit laid before it on a little stone ledge.  
  
"Everybody says I should just follow the sound of water to get back to the docks," Zoro grumbles. "Then I do it and this bullshit happens. Still, I guess this is okay."  
  
He drags Sanji over to the fountain and then unceremoniously grabs him by the hair and dunks his head into the water.  
  
"Arglrrbbbllllllflurrrrr!" is all Sanji manages past the water gushing into his mouth and nose. He's yanked back out almost immediately to hang, gasping, in Zoro's rough grip. "You-! Fucking-! _ASSHOLE!_ "  
  
"Good. You look better already," grunts Zoro.  
  
"I TOLD YOU I DON'T HAVE HEATSTROKE YOU EMPTY HEADED MOSSMONSTER!" A sharp knee strike finally gets the fucker to let go, and Sanji staggers back, panting in rage.  
  
"You also said you'd only been thinking about me. If shit like that is coming out of your mouth then something's gotta be wrong."   
  
"I will kill you," says Sanji, his voice a serpent's soft hiss. "I will murder you and leave you face down in this fountain and never have to worry about your ungrateful ass ever again! Of course something's wrong, you self-destructive idiot! You going along with this whole bullshit raffle is wrong! Since when are you the type to lie back and take it? And that whole business with Nami-swan! D'you have any idea what kind of insult you dealt her?"  
  
Zoro shrugs, that same, half-hearted movement of shoulders as before. He mumbles, "Don't see how. Pimps make a lot of money."   
  
"It's not about the money. It's about-" Sanji's hands flutter in front of him, trying to shape the ideas out of the air. "-about sex. And . . . You know. Respect. About your right to choose and to say no and all that shit. That's very important to a woman!"  
  
"But I didn't say no."  
  
"You should have!"  
  
Zoro squints at him, his good eye a narrow sliver of suspicion. "I thought I got the right to choose-?"  
  
"Of course you do! But that's the point: you made the wrong choice."  
  
"This is getting really stupid," says Zoro.  
  
"Your face is really stupid," Sanji snaps back, sick of trying to explain the subtleties of female logic to this great lump of meat. "Look, it's simple. If you act like Nami-san is your pimp, then you are implying that you think that she is okay with you being a whore. Okay? You got that?"  
  
That empty green head bobs up and down in a slow nod. "Alright. I can understand that." Then, "Still don't get why being a whore's a big deal. Like I said, it's not much different from what I already do, and she was okay with renting those services, so. . ."  
  
And Sanji stands there with the heat and the noise fading away, his hair dripping into his face and he can't bring himself to care anymore because never, _never_ would he have thought those words would come from that mouth, but they have and the implications send Sanji's mind into a tailspin. He pats himself down absently for his cigarette carton, which has thankfully stayed wedged into the sarong by the base of his spine. He puts a cigarette between his lips mechanically. Begins the pat down for his lighter.  
  
"Shit," he says. It's fallen out. Lost somewhere in the crowd and the city. He takes the cigarette back into his fingers and stares at it. Can't seem to think of a next step. "Shit."  
  
Zoro eyes the fountain thoughtfully for a moment, then evidently takes pity on him and goes to the little shrine instead. "Dumbass. Get yourself a purse if you're going to wander around in a skirt without pockets. Here." He comes back to Sanji carrying one of the incense sticks.  
  
It's a little tricky getting a light from the smoldering end of the stick. They have to linger close together again, their fingers brushing as they shield the embers kindling on Sanji's cigarette, and when Sanji finally inhales it sucks in nicotine and the sweet smoke of incense, the perfume of the orchids in Zoro's hair and the musk of his bare body.   
  
That body . . .   
  
"You really mean it, don't you," says Sanji in a slow, wondering tone as he watches Zoro toss away the incense stick. "That you're not much different from a whore."  
  
Zoro rubs the back of his neck. His brow is furrowed and he can't meet Sanji's gaze, but he still says, "Aren't fighting and fucking just something you do with your body? A skill?"  
  
Sanji lifts an eyebrow. "You don't think sex is more . . . intimate?"  
  
"Killing people can be intimate."  
  
"So says Roronoa Zoro, the Demon of East Blue," is what Sanji says.  
  
But what he is thinking is: Roronoa Zoro, the whore. Words he can't help but linger on, can't help but fucking savour, his brain conjuring a vision not of Nami-san or Robin-chan, but Zoro, stripping himself to the skin and kneeling down and for once doing as he is fucking told and wrapping his lips around Sanji's cock. All that skill, all that dedication to perfection being turned not toward killing but toward pleasing, his body not a shield or a weapon but a tight, wet hole for Sanji to rut into, to use and abuse as he sees fit, pour himself into as Zoro is forced to drink and swallow and _thank him for the meal._  
  
Sanji breaths out. It betrays him, the cigarette smoke curling into the unmistakable shape of a heart.  
  
The Demon of East Blue takes a step back. "I'll dunk you again if you get weird."   
  
Demon? Hah! His white crown of orchids tags him for what he is, an innocent to the ways of true passion, of love, of sex. Sanji takes a single long step back into Zoro's personal space and puts his hands on those hips still wrapped tight in sunrise fabric and blood-red cord, strokes his thumbs along the line of skin just above that to make the muscles of Zoro's belly jump. "Weird? I thought you just said fighting and fucking are the same." He leans in closer, wipes away the jealous memory of Robin-chan by breathing his own words into Zoro's ear and making those earrings sway. "And since we already do the one . . . "  
  
The red roses of blush that bloom in Zoro's cheeks are lovely, but it's the hitch in his breath that's beautiful. That little rasp that shows just how deep Sanji is managing to drive this dagger, finally striking past the skin into the meat of the man and marking him irrevocably. Scarring him like so many have before, but with words and touch and ideas instead of cold steel.  
  
Zoro licks his lips and Sanji can't help but track the movement. Watch the shift of Zoro's throat as he swallows. Smile to see how Zoro's gaze searches Sanji's face then darts away and down. Embarrassed? Shy?  
  
Sanji wants very, very badly to know just what is going through that mind.  
  
As if in answer, a single unicorn orchid blushes fit to mirror Zoro, pale petals flushing to scarlet as it wilts and withers and falls from Zoro's crown to drift down between the two men.   
  
"My, my, Marimo-chan," Sanji purrs. He lets go of Zoro and stoops to pick up the fallen flower. Though the tight spiral of its petals have wilted, it's still quite pretty, the carmine colour rich and vibrant against the white of Sanji's palm. "Looks like I'll have to be more careful. Such a delicate blossom."  
  
"Don't fuck with me!"  
  
"O~~h? You sure about that? Because this flower might be wilted but you've got another one springing up to take its place," says Sanji. He pointedly eyes the pronounced tent in Zoro's sarong, gives him a lazy little grin. "Why don't you take a turn in the fountain to cool down? We can't have you losing your crown. You go back out there without it and that mob will eat you alive."  
  
This time Zoro doesn't even try for a retort. He just storms over to the fountain and dunks himself in it, bending over to get his head and shoulders into the water. He holds himself under for a good minute before he comes up for air, snorting and wiping at his face, water beads shining on his flower crown like gems. His blush is gone, more's the pity, replaced by a pensive look as he braces himself against the rim of the fountain and stares into its waters. ". . . Why are you even doing this shit? I'm not a woman."  
  
Sanji looks at him. At the smooth, muscled expanse of Zoro's back that ripples with every shift of his weight, the dark bronze skin utterly scarless, utterly flawless, a testament to Zoro's skill as a swordsman that's kept it untouched.  
  
Virginal.  
  
He watches the drop of water that slides along the elegant line of Zoro's spine, its wet trail inviting fingers to trace its path down to where twin dimples peep out from the waistband of the sarong.  
  
Sensual.  
  
Bent over like this, you can really appreciate the curve of his ass, too. Zoro's muscled all over, and that includes his rump, a sweet roundness pressing against the thin tangerine fabric of the sarong and reminding Sanji of nothing so much as a pair of large, ripe oranges - ridiculous thought, but it makes him long to give them a good squeeze.  
  
Desirable.  
  
"It's a goddamn mystery," says Sanji.   
  
He goes over to the incense stick Zoro tossed aside and picks it up.   
  
_Might as well return the favour_ , Sanji muses. A little fussing and he manages to get it relighted with his cigarette, and then he sticks the incense back into the offering jar on the altar. He claps his hands together and solemnly recites, "Please island god, grant this poor Mosshead a miracle and get him laid."   
  
Then, grinning brightly, he turns to Zoro. "How about we go back to the ship? It's almost lunch time and Chopper's probably starving. You can get drunk and sulk while we wait for Nami-swan to get back and tell us about how she's rigged the raffle."  
  
". . . Yeah, okay," Zoro agrees, tone mild enough but gaze suspicious.  
  
Probably his instincts picking up danger. Because though Sanji's face is pleasant and smiling, in his mind he's making a fervent addendum to his little prayer:  
  
 _And while you're at it maybe work on that whole Zoro the whore thing, please and thanks._


	5. Chapter 5

The sun bleeds out in a fantastical sunset, its cloudy deathbed a riot of colours that mirrors the island blooms, its golden blood spilling across an ocean smooth as glass. Sanji watches it die through the kitchen windows as he washes dishes and smokes. There's less work tonight than usual. Half the crew are still ashore, eating and drinking and partying with the frenetic crowd surging through the streets. He's only had to feed Chopper and Zoro, the ladies and himself.   
  
With the humid air smothering them all like a hot, wet towel he'd decided on something cool and light. Cold cubed tofu with minced shallots and sesame oil, shredded pork and pickled vegetables. Savoury and simple to contrast with the overabundance of sweet and spicy food on the island, and if it's just the sort of thing their resident virgin sacrifice likes that's nothing but coincidence.  
  
The girls had certainly appreciated it. He'd taken care to dye their pickled ginger a delicate rose with the help of beet juice, had left the skin on the little red radishes to make a pleasing contrast with their white flesh, had cut their tofu into hearts and flowers instead of plain cubes. Nami-san had happily crunched through her portion as she brought him up to speed.  
  
"The raffle is at sunrise. Then the winner is taken to the temple where they get to eat and drink for free until noon, when they're 'ritually deflowered'," she had said, making cute little air quotes with her fingers and fork, all the more charming for the blush that had pinked her cheeks and ears at the euphemism. She'd coughed. "Um. Yes. And then they stay in the temple all day and all night, and next morning they're brought back to their ship and sent off."  
  
"And forbidden from returning," had added Robin-chan. She'd forgone her usual coffee for more of Sanji's cucumber water, and she'd taken a long swallow before continuing. "The sacrifice is free to go anywhere and do anything, but they must never return to Ambrwazee. Interesting, don't you think?" She'd raised an eyebrow. Smiled a mocking little smile.  
  
Sanji had forced a, "Very much so, Robin-chan," through his gritted teeth.   
  
It was interesting. It was also extremely suspicious. Why would they forbid the return of someone who had participated in their most sacred rites? And yet they allowed that same person the freedom to travel anywhere they pleased and say anything they liked, and that was strange, too. Wouldn't they want to keep their sacred rites a secret?   
  
The thought had surfaced so slowly in his mind that it slipped right past him and out his mouth: " . . . Why is it still a secret?"  
  
Robin's smile had widened into a delighted grin. "Very good, Cook-san."  
  
It took only seconds for Nami-san to catch up to them. "You think they do something to the sacrifices to keep them from telling?"  
  
Robin-chan had shrugged. "It's certainly not outside the realm of possibility. Sugar proved that there are Devil Fruit that affect the memory. And even baring those, we have encountered many strange things in our travels and there is still more we haven't seen. The only way of knowing for certain is to see for ourselves."  
  
"But we don't have to!" Nami had protested. "Zoro just has to win the raffle. He doesn't have to actually go through with this weird ceremony. He doesn't even have to go near the temple!" She had turned pleading eyes toward Sanji, and despite the circumstances he had felt his heart jump, his blood heat. Nami-san was so beautiful when she begged him! If only what was coming out of her mouth hadn't been, "You talked with Zoro, right? You made him understand!"   
  
Sanji had done his best to let her down gently. "No one can 'make' Zoro do -or think- anything. He'll go through with it because he said he would. That's just how he is. But we did talk and . . . it's not quite what you thought, Nami-san. He's got an odd perspective. It doesn't mean the same thing to him as it does to you, so don't worry." He'd smiled at her encouragingly. "Trust in his pride as a swordsman if nothing else. He won't do anything to let his name be," he'd groped for the word, "degraded."  
  
She'd sat back in her chair and sighed. "Boys," she'd grumbled, but the fine lines of worry about her eyes had faded.  
  
"As for whatever might happen in that temple, I already promised Usopp I'd keep an eye on our pet mossmonster, so you two don't need to worry about that, either."  
  
Robin-chan had propped her chin in her palm. "Nose-kun? Truly? I hadn't realized this ceremony was bothering him."  
  
Sanji had very carefully avoided her gaze. "His worries aren't the same as yours but, uh, yeah. He wasn't happy."  
  
"And you took his concerns seriously. How fascinating," she had murmured.   
  
"Well, if Zoro really is stuck on going through with this then I feel much better knowing you're looking out for him, Sanji-kun," Nami-san had said. Then she'd added in her sweetest voice, "As long as you promise to keep your eyes on Zoro and not any priestesses you might find."  
  
"Yes, Nami-swan. Of course, Nami-swan," said Sanji, and bowed them out of the kitchen as they left for bed.  
  
Now Sanji sighs and glares out the window. The sun has breathed its last and the sky is cloaked in mourning. He sets the last of the dishes in the drying rack, then moves to the open kitchen door to try and catch the breeze.  
  
In front of him the moon, face pale and wane, is starting its rise. The howling laughter and incessant singing from the island grows vulgar under its cold light, no longer a celebration of sex and sensuality but a crude, animal orgy of sound and flesh. It's a good thing Franky was so attentive about soundproofing the ladies' quarters. The wet heat is bad enough with even night bringing no relief, but adding this noise to it is sure to make anyone's sleep troubled.   
  
Chopper certainly seems to be having problems. Poor kid, he always has a hard time on Summer Islands, and Ambrwazee is particularly extreme. Even the dry, sucking heat of Alabasta is more pleasant than this. At least on Alabasta you weren't so damn sticky.   
  
Sanji can see him down on the lawn deck, splayed out with his hat tossed aside and an icepack on his forehead. Zoro, still dressed in his ridiculous flower crown and sarong, kneels beside him seiza, and with the doting way he readjusts Chopper's icepack you could take him for a bodyslave. Not that Chopper can appreciate this.  
  
 _Tch. What a waste. Come kneel next to me if you want to play servant, dumbass. I'd know what to do with you._  
  
Images of Zoro being finally put to good use parade through Sanji's mind - dish washing and floor scrubbing and garbage hauling are his first thoughts, of course, but he can already get that out of Zoro with enough nagging. No, what he'd really use Zoro for is the long stretches of time when Sanji has to stand at the counter chopping and peeling and grating. Times when he sits at the table waiting for meat to stew, for bread to rise, when he pages through his recipe books and makes notes for future meals. All the times when Sanji is still. He'd have Zoro there, head between Sanji's thighs and mouth around Sanji's dick. Wet and tight. Quiet and warm. Tasting nothing but Sanji and smelling nothing but Sanji and seeing and hearing and feeling nothing but Sanji. Teach Zoro about _real_ intimacy.  
  
Well. Someone will be teaching Zoro about that soon enough, right? At noon tomorrow they'll take him to the temple and teach him all kinds of things.  
  
Sanji pulls his cigarette from his mouth and frowns at it. The taste has gone off. He tosses it overboard and slinks back into the kitchen to find something to clean his palate.  
  
He shuffles around the kitchen for a bit, considering this or that, but nothing seems quite right. He winds up peering into the liquor cabinet, staring at the bottles but not actually seeing them.  
  
 _Nothing seems quite right_ , he repeats to himself. He sighs again and scrubs his face with his hands, then runs his fingers through his hair. If it's bothering him enough to put him off his cigarettes maybe it's time he admits, "I hate this. I hate this island, I hate this raffle, I hate this whole stupid situation." He leans his head against one of the cabinet's shelves. Closes his eyes. "And I fucking hate Zoro."  
  
When he opens his eyes it's to the sight of a saké bottle, the same kind Zoro had tried back on Mayshee and savoured. Robin-chan had found some while out on the island and brought back a bottle. Sanji had thanked her effusively of course, but then tucked it into the liquor cabinet without much thought, too busy with preparing dinner to bother telling the mossmonster that Robin-chan had generously wasted her time on him.  
  
He picks up the bottle and cradles it in his hand. Plain white ceramic, plain cork, simple black lettering along its side spelling out 'Fugacité.'   
  
Transience.   
  
He gets a pair of cups and heads out onto the lawn deck.   
  
Zoro is still kneeling on the grass, but he's moved Chopper's head onto his lap to better manage the little reindeer's icepack. With anyone else Chopper would be protesting about how he's a man and can tough it out, but there's something about Zoro that makes the pampering acceptable. Maybe it's because Zoro is so titanically strong that feeling weak in front of him is nothing new for Chopper. Maybe it's because Chopper has doctored Zoro enough that a role reversal is just a nice change.   
  
"Oi, Nurse Marimo. If you're taking requests I could do with a foot rub," Sanji says. He sits down beside Zoro and offers him a cup.  
  
Well, whatever the reason for Chopper's preferences is, it's not the bedside manners, because, "Take two slaps to the face and call me in the morning," is the reply.   
  
But the tone is mellow, and Zoro actually grunts a, "Thanks," as he takes the cup from Sanji. Raises an eyebrow appreciatively at the bottle when Sanji plunks it down between them. "Oh ho. The girls bring that back?"  
  
"Robin-chwan. Be sure to thank her, you mannerless ape."  
  
"Tch. 'S not like I asked her to. Okay, okay, fine, I'll tell her tomorrow morning. Now finish pouring!"  
  
"He can be taught," says Sanji, and fills Zoro's cup.   
  
Can be taught. Will be taught. And by someone not even crew.   
  
Sanji pours himself some saké but can't bring himself to drink, worried about spoiling the flavour with the sour taste in his mouth. Instead he tips the cup this way and that and watches how the moonlight reflects off the cloudy liquid. It's nigori saké - opaque and creamy instead of the pure clarity that usually characterizes the alcohol - and with the light glinting off of it you'd almost think Sanji held a second moon in his palm.    
  
Zoro has no such hesitations. He immediately brings the cup to his lips for a sip, closes his eye and hums with pleasure, a sound scrapped from the back of his throat.   
  
Lush. So ready to do as he's told when drink is on the line. Just how far would he go?   
  
Would he let Sanji touch him?   
  
Would he touch himself?  
  
Would he get on all fours and lap it from a dish, like a cat, like a pet, like a thing tamed to Sanji's hand? And if Sanji brought himself off and poured his seed in with it, mixing white with white into a sticky-sweet cocktail all too deserving of the name, would Zoro still drink it?  
  
Or would Sanji have to help him along? Step on that proud head and force it down, face first into sex and booze and submission.  
  
"Roronoa Zoro the whore," he murmurs. The words are heavy and sweet on his tongue as nothing else has been tonight.  
  
Zoro glances at him. "You say something, shit cook?"  
  
Then Chopper stirs and shifts the icepack so he can look up at Zoro. "What's that smell? It's really nice."  
  
"It's the saké," Zoro tells him. He smiles down at Chopper and holds the cup to the doctor's face. "Here, try some."  
  
"Alcohol? I don't usually like that stuff, Zoro," says Chopper doubtfully.   
  
"You'll like this."  
  
Chopper takes the cup into his hooves, sniffs at it, little blue nose quivering. "It smells like your flower crown, but stronger. I didn't know they made saké with orchids." He takes a cautious sip and his eyes widen. "Ooooooooh~ It tastes-! It's like-!" He gestures helplessly with one hoof.   
  
Zoro chuckles softly. "Yeah. Finish the cup, it'll help you sleep. Just go slow. It's strong stuff."  
  
"Mmmhmmm." The saké is finished in a few more sips, and when it's all gone Chopper yawns hugely and blinks, once, twice, before shifting to his side and settling into sleep, the icepack slumping across his face like a particularly soggy bedcap.   
  
Zoro rescues the cup before it can hit the lawn. He holds it out to Sanji. "Refill."  
  
"Ask nicely," says Sanji, because he can't resist.   
  
"Refill it before I cut off your fucking head."  
  
"And disturb Chopper when he's finally fallen asleep?" Sanji sets down his own drink and then holds up the bottle, waves it around and gives Zoro his best smile. "Just one word~."  
  
Zoro glares at him sullenly. "Refill . . . please."  
  
It's all Sanji can do not to purr.   
  
Refill given, he rests his elbow on a knee and his chin in his hand. He leaves the bottle within Zoro's reach, but even so the swordsman doesn't follow his usual pattern of chugging it down like water. Instead Zoro drinks at a slow, lingering pace. Stares at the moon. Shifts Chopper's melting icepack. Licks his lips and sighs.  
  
What is it about this saké? Sanji picks up his cup once more and frowns at it before taking a cautious sniff. His frown deepens. And when he takes a sip frost tingles in his fingertips and along his spine because despite Chopper's delighted praise and Zoro's own evident enjoyment Sanji tastes _nothing_. Nothing at all.  
  
He darts a glance at Zoro and is met with calm understanding.   
  
"So it's like that," Zoro says. "Thought it might be."  
  
"Zoro . . ."  
  
"It's fine. It just means I finish the bottle tonight."  
  
There are other options. Nami-san's murderous bit of sophistry leaps to mind. A case of Usopp's terrible 'can't go ashore' disease.   
  
Sabotaging the offering.  
  
That last one is so damn tempting.  
  
Especially when Zoro stares at the moon for too long and swallows only his own spit twice in a row, and even in the dark Sanji can see the betraying colour of that charming blush rise to Zoro's cheeks again. Watches in fascination as Zoro opens his mouth as if to speak and then hesitates. Fucking hesitates! Zoro, the man who'd opened his arms to a black sword edged with death and smiled, hadn't even flinched.  
  
When the words come out they are very soft, so much so Sanji has to lean in to hear them over the distant clamour of the festival.  
  
". . . oi, cook. You're . . . supposed to be gentle, right? With sex. Sensei said . . . " Zoro blows air out his nose in a heavy sigh. When he speaks again his voice is oddly flat. "But Sensei wasn't always right."  
  
Sanji's mouth _aches_ with the need to lean in those few inches more and run his tongue over Zoro's cheeks, lap along that scar and the feathers of his eyelashes, taste sweat and skin and the hot fires of bashfulness, of _vulnerability_. He is salivating, fucking drooling at the thought, and he has to pull back and swallow discreetly to keep from spilling down the front of his face like the ravenous beast he is striving to lock away within himself.   
  
"You can do it other ways." _I want to show you them all._ "But yeah, gentle is best for the first time since you don't know what you're doing."   
  
"Tch." Zoro scowls down at his empty hand. Flexes his fingers.  
  
Sanji answers the unspoken words with, "You do fine looking after Chopper."  
  
"That's different."  
  
"Less then you think. It's a bit like sparring. You don't go full strength because that's not the point." And Sanji knows he's about to give in. He's too much the chef to let a meal go untasted and too much a beast to let his prey escape unmarked. His hand reaches out like it's got a mind of its own, a lazy movement that curls his fingers around Zoro's chin to make him look up at Sanji. He leans in. Presses their foreheads together so all he can see is Zoro's face, Zoro's wide eye, that vertical scar forever sealing the other closed. Whispers, "Here. I'll show you."  
  
Then he kisses Zoro.  
  
He is very, very gentle. His lips move against Zoro's slowly, tender skin against skin, warmth against warmth. Chaste.  
  
And at first Zoro is unmoving. Unblinking. But as Sanji persists that rigid body bends for him. The tension goes out of Zoro's shoulders, their line curving toward Sanji into something more intimate. His breathing deepens. His eyelashes dip, flutter, finally drop. Zoro closes his eye and relaxes into Sanji's hold.  
  
Sanji lets himself lick that bottom lip.   
  
He can _feel_ the answering shiver go through Zoro's body. And when the sweat that's beading on Zoro's brow slips down in drops and pool on his upper lip, Sanji licks that up as well. Presses his mouth back to Zoro's and uses lips and tongue to coax him open.  
  
There is the faintest of gasps as their tongue meet and Sanji can feel that, too, pressed against and inside of Zoro as he is.   
  
_Should I-?_  
  
 _Yes, yes, yes_ , he answers himself before he can even finish the thought.   
  
He tightens his grip on Zoro's jaw and cups the other hand around the back of Zoro's neck and then starts thrusting, his tongue plunging in and out, sloppy and wet and rubbing luridly against Zoro's, his rhythm deliberate and measured, his meaning unmistakable, and Zoro shudders and then he fucking _rumbles_. It's a sound torn from deep in his chest. Like thunder before a storm, like a starving tiger before fresh meat.   
  
It goes against the grain to let him go hungry. But they are not alone, and anyway this is just the fast before the feast, right? Zoro will get his fill tomorrow. So Sanji pulls out and pulls away before things get wild enough to wake Chopper.  
  
He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. His voice is hoarser then he'd like as he whispers, "See? Easy," but when he climbs to his feet it's on steady legs.   
  
He stands there before Zoro, hips cocked proudly to show the erection tenting his own sarong. He can't be bothered to feel ashamed after this. And anyway, judging by the dazed look on Zoro's face Sanji's got nothing to be ashamed of.  
  
"Marimo-chan likes that, huh?"  
  
Zoro comes back to himself with a blink. Scowls up at Sanji, defiant despite his scarlet face. "So?"  
  
Sanji just chuckles. "So don't worry about tomorrow. They've been deflowering virgins for hundreds of years, right? I'm good," very, very good, to have put that look on Zoro's face, "But those guys are professionals. They'll know how to handle you."  
  
With anonymous hands, anonymous touches, all over that scarred bronze skin. Every sacrifice has supposedly enjoyed themselves, sure, but every sacrifice wasn't Zoro. Wasn't part of the Monster Trio, wasn't swordsman to the someday King of Pirates, wasn't Sanji's nakama. Will they really treat Zoro well? Will they really do it -do _him_ \- right?  
  
Sanji doesn't know. Sanji fucking hates that. And Sanji is coming to realize that even if he hadn't promised Usopp, and Robin-chan, and Nami-san, he has at some point promised _himself_ he will watch over Zoro. This whole situation has gotten out of control and if Zoro is going to bull through this then someone has to have his back, and it might as well be Sanji, who is used to cleaning up Zoro's messes and thinking on his feet and, yes, is pretty much to blame for this whole mess anyway.  
  
He sighs heavily and turns, heading back toward the kitchen. "Enjoy that saké while you still can, Marimo. You've only got a few more hours before they take away your pretty crown for good."  
  
If Zoro answers, Sanji doesn't hear it.


	6. Chapter 6

Sunrise is seven AM on Ambrwazee, but all the resident crew of the Sunny are up well beforehand. Sanji is always up and about by five anyway, getting breakfast in order, checking to see what's been stolen from the pantry overnight, planning the day's meals accordingly. It's a little unusual for Nami-san and Robin-chan - seven AM is usually just when they're starting to stir - but Nami-san wants to be in place for the raffle with plenty of time to spare. Chopper, of course, has been woken to take up his duties as boat watch once again.  
  
It's actually Zoro who's most out of sync. He's their regular nightwatch, and dawn is when he heads to bed. So it's not surprising that he's now wedged between the town square's mural and an enormous potted fern, snoring away, happily oblivious to the mounting din as the crowd starts to gather.  
  
Sanji leans against the wall beside him, smoking and watching the sun push back night's curtains. The light of morning  spills across the sky like watercolour paints, seeps into the clouds and stains them orange and pink, draws delicate outlines in gold around every leaf and blossom on the island.  
  
The revellers aren't treated so kindly. Everyone here has been partying all night, drinking and eating and fucking, and the ravages of it show on their faces. Some too pale, some too flushed, a good part of them sunburnt and peeling, and all with dark circles under their eyes and their flower crowns half-wilted, their sarongs stained and torn.  
  
But they are all smiling and their eyes are bright and hungry above those dark circles. They gather around the tall wooden platform that's been erected overnight at the centre of the town square, hundreds of people cramming themselves in tight, tight together, coiling into a whirlpool of human bodies. And yet here and there you can see clear spots, stones that the current is forced to flow around - the other virgins.  
  
Sanji blows smoke hearts and grins wide around his cigarette. It's true he doesn't exactly have the best view of things from where he's leaning, but the glimpses he gets are enough. There's a willowy brunette to his left, her brown and cinnamon skin glowing against the backdrop of her tangerine sarong. There's a pair of blondes a little further off. Twins. Wide hipped, big breasted, long braids of their golden hair dangling down to their ankles, flower crowns like pale halos above their angelic faces. And he can just catch a glimpse of another lovely with flowing blue hair and skin fine as alabaster.  
  
His heart gives a special little lurch at that. _Vivi-chan . . ._  
  
Not that anyone would have allowed her to participate in this. He's sure that just thinking about it has sent shivers down Igaram's spine halfway across the world. But it's a nice thought. Sweet Vivi-chan, so earnest, so serious, offering herself up as a sacrifice once again. But this time it would be the sweetest of pleasures instead of a terrible ordeal, and her crown would be not of gold but of flowers.  
  
His imagination is more then happy to supply image after image of her in her supplicant's sarong, blue hair bright against the orange of the fabric, that grave look of concentration on her face as she'd ask to be shown the most elemental of fertility rites. She'd then be spread out on the altar, her hair loose and wild like the ocean, her legs a wide and welcoming harbour, and her fields would indeed be sown with seed until she blossomed into something both more and less than a princess: a _woman_.  
  
He sighs. Oh, to see Vivi-chan like that. She'd been a shy colt in her dancer's outfit, which always has its own charm, but to see her aware of her own sensuality-! Now that would be a sight!  
  
"You're dripping, Nosebleed."  
  
Sanji swipes the blood from his upper lip. "Go back to sleep, Shithead. You're gonna need your rest for what's coming."  
  
"No point. They're starting."  
  
The best thing about haki is that Sanji doesn't have to take his eyes off the girls to use it. His senses flicker outward across the crowd and picks up what Zoro's noticed already. A few moments later and he can actually see it with his eyes. At first it's just the birds swooping ahead with their colourful banners, and then the palm fronds being carried like standards. Then the crowd itself seems to ripple, and slowly it parts before the oncoming procession.  
  
They come in four rows of three abreast. On either side of each row there's a boy and a girl in yellow sarongs and carrying the palm fronds, their feet bare and their heads crowned with the unicorn orchids of virgins.  
  
They're barely pubescent but they're beautiful in the way of unopened buds and the indigo sky before dawn, and they move as if they're dancing, a strange swaying gait where they swing their hips and drag their feet, and twirl the palm frond above them as the birds fly back and forth in great arcs.  
  
In the middle walk what Sanji can only assume is the priests. Priestesses? It's impossible to know. Every one of them is covered, obscured from feet to fingertips to face with the help of a hooded scarlet robe and a wooden mask intricately carved into the shape of a flower. The first the delicate swirl of a rose, the second the elegant trumpet of a lily. The simple prettiness of a daisy's sunburst. A dahlia's thousand petals edged in scarlet.  
  
They make an eerie sight. No sway of steps, no motion of head or arms, and with the dancing children to either side as contrast their odd, gliding pace seems even more inhuman. Flower spirits come for the warm flesh of animals.  
   
But it's not the priests that have ice crystals tingling in Sanji's fingertips, in his gut, in a long line up his spine. It's the crowd. The smiles from before have become incandescent grins. The eyes have gone from hungry to starving. These people. . . they are no longer humans but beasts barely held in check.  
  
"All they need is the weird eyebrows and you could pass as family," Zoro mutters.  
  
"I hope they fuck you without lube," Sanji snaps. "Now shut up. I'm trying to find Nami-san and Robin-chan."  
  
It takes him only a moment to locate those beloved auras, and when he does it takes all of his willpower not to repeat the mistake he made on Thriller Bark and call out to them where they've hidden themselves, side by side on a branch of one of the towering bottlebrush trees on the edge of the square, Nami-san with her Climatact drawn and Robin-chan with her wrists crossed, already in position to act.  
  
He stuffs his cigarette between his lips and takes a deep drag, gagging himself with smoke and nicotine, and lets his senses flit around the square. There's no sign that anyone else has noticed the ladies, and he lets out his breath in a slow sigh of relief.  
  
Zoro grunts. "That woman works fast." He points up. "What d'you think? Mirage Tempo?"  
  
Sanji squints his eyes at the swirling current who's shape and motion he can only just see, traced out by silver cigarette smoke and the golden dust of flower pollen. "Probably. I can't imagine lightning would be useful for this."  
  
The procession mounts the platform and spreads itself out, one pair of male and female virgins at each corner, and inside, a smaller square of the masked priests. The one with the dahlia mask holds up its arm -the sleeve is so long it drapes over and hides and glimpse of human hand- and bit by bit silence settles over the crowd, until it's as thick and heavy as the humidity and just as clinging-unpleasant. Everyone pressed so close, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, and _you can hear them breathing_. The whole fucking mob panting like dogs, like bitches in heat.  
  
Even sheltered as he is on the edge of it Sanji still wants to scrap his nails down his skin, try to claw off this sticky, sickly feeling. The scent of flowers becomes something over-ripe and spoilt. His senses buzz and howl even though his haki insists that there's nothing there. _Nothing!_  
  
Like there'd been nothing to that saké.  
  
He shivers.  
  
And there in that moment Sanji does what he'd never thought he would. He hopes that Nami-san will fail. Somehow. Anyhow. That she drops the Climatact, that the priests notice her tampering, that Luffy comes bounding into the square and the thought hits Sanji like one of Nami-san's thunderbolts:  
  
_Where the fuck is Luffy?!_  
  
He'd been so serious about Zoro winning, so certain in that odd way of his, the one that has you swearing he's making the world bend like his own rubber flesh to fit his whims. Shouldn't he be here? Doesn't he want to see this? And what about the others? Where are they? Usopp and Brook and Franky - at least one of them should have shown for this but they are nowhere in sight. Even stranger, they haven't caused the usual uproar. No fights. No howls of outrage. Nothing.  
  
But he doesn't have time to fillet that fish because the situation here has come to a rolling boil. Dahlia-mask gestures, and Rose-mask pulls an orange silk bag from the depths of its robe, the fabric fat and full. Jiggles it a bit, so everyone can hear the clack of wooden tags inside. Then, with a flourish, it opens the bag wide and offers it to Dahlia-mask.  
  
There's a great hiss as everyone squeezed into the town square sucks in a breath.  
  
It's a mark of Nami-san and Robin-chan's incredible skills that even with haki Sanji only barely catches the faintest flicker of energy of the trick. Under the cover of Nami-san's mirage, Robin-chan's disembodied hands toss a small wooden tag from the tree to the platform to the inside of the bag, and finally offer it up when Dahlia-mask plunges its arm into the sack.  
  
It's a trick only those two could pull. Unseen, unnoticed, over in seconds. Dahlia-mask pulls back its arm, and clutched in its sleeve is the wooden tag for number twenty seven. Not that Sanji can see the glyphs, but it's not like he needs to, right?  
  
Zoro obviously agrees, already hauling himself to his feet. He sighs and rubs at his eyes. "Think they'll let me sleep instead of feast?"  
  
"What, and miss out on all the free booze that goes with it?"  
  
"Won't be drinking much of it anyway. Not when I don't know what I'm heading into and you're so on edge."  
  
Sanji immediately stiffens. "Oi. I'm not the one you should be worried about here, moron!" He scowls. "And for fuck's sake I thought you were over thinking I have heatstroke."  
  
Zoro shakes his head. "It's not that." He's frowning but it's thoughtful, and his dark, one-eyed gaze is searching as he stares into Sanji's eyes.  
  
Whatever it is remains a mystery. Dahlia-mask is booming, "NUMBER TWENTY SEVEN. NUMBER TWENTY SEVEN, PRESENT THYSELF!" and Zoro is walking forward.  
  
"I'm twenty seven!" he calls, raising his hand.  
  
Faces turn toward them. Heads tilt and necks crane and eyes widen, bodies move aside for Zoro to walk past. The way to the platform opens before him and Zoro strides down it like he's some kind of goddamn king. Head up and shoulders straight. The slow, graceful stride of a warrior.  
  
His aura, that awful, awesome presence that slays courage at a glace, flares. Flipflop sandals, the sarong, the crown of flowers, it all fades away until all you see is Zoro, until all that you register is that this man is dangerous. This man is a killer. That he is no fainting virgin being brought to sacrifice against his will - this man is ready and willing and doing it on his own terms.  
  
There is no trace of the insecurity from yesterday, of the pliant creature from last night. Now he is himself. Stubborn and proud and unyielding. Where all the other offerings Sanji can see are vanilla and caramel, Zoro is meat and salt.  
  
And the moan from the crowd as they see him is pure hunger.  
  
They close ranks behind him as close as they dare before Dahlia-mask lifts a warning hand, cringing back like they're a pack of starving dogs barely kept in check by fear of the master. They yip among themselves about beefy arms and juicy glutes, thick, strong legs and broad shoulders. Muscle, he's all muscle everywhere without an ounce of fat. Lean meat. _Fresh_ meat.  
  
Then comes the whispering about the green hair -grass hair, a good omen- and the scars and the face, inspecting him and dissecting him piece by piece as Sanji would a veal carcase. Eat him alive? This mob would swallow Zoro whole, and Sanji's a little disconcerted to find flames licking at the soles of his sandals, a sullen, jealous fire that hungers to burn away these scrabbling, scavenging mutts.  
  
He tries to quell the flames and _utterly fails_ when some dickhead wolf-whistles as Zoro mounts the stairs.  
  
_It's that fucking sarong_ , Sanji fumes. _It's so tight it shows off his ass to anyone who'll look! I should have made him re-tie the damn thing yesterday when he first put it on._  
  
Zoro stands before the four priests, arms crossed, swords at his side, and when he speaks he sounds as bored as if he were on the Sunny giving chore assignments. "I'm number twenty seven," he repeats. Reaches down and tugs at the wooden tag still tied to his waist. "You need to check this?"  
  
Dahlia-mask turns to Lily-mask, who tilts their head for a long moment and then says, "TWENTY SEVEN, CONFIRMED."  
  
"TWENTY SEVEN CONFIRMED!" proclaims Dahlia-mask. It takes Zoro by the shoulders, turns him to face the crowd. "BEHOLD THE SACRIFICE!"  
  
The approving roar from the surrounding mob makes the surrounding trees shake, shedding leaves and petals, has Sanji's ears ringing and his teeth grinding. People throw up their hands and shriek in delight, call for booze and food, embrace each other, dance in place. Then one of the virgins in the crowd throws her crown onto the platform at Zoro's feet and the party _really_ begins, because she's immediately scooped up by one of the men next to her and kissed. She wraps her legs around his waist and claws at his back, and people howl and reach for someone, anyone, to copy them with.  
  
The twins' crowns go next, then the lovely with blue hair's, then another and yet another from people out of Sanji's sight, the crowns of all the prospective virgins being passed forward to lay discarded on the platform around Zoro's feet, and with them, any restraint left in the crowd.  
  
Sanji's heart thunders in his chest. He's so lightheaded he has to clutch the wall for support, blood rushing to his nose and his dick as women untie their halter tops, arch their backs, and present him with a veritable buffet of breasts. They come in all sizes, shapes, colours - pert little apricots and firm, fresh apples and round, sweet melons. Milky pale to caramel to deep cocoa. Here a pair with a scattering of freckles, another with gold glinting at piercings, even one or two with shy nipples tucked in flat, and he's allowed to touch them! He's allowed to touch them all! Is this heaven? Is this the miracle of the island god?  
  
Hands reach out to him and pull him into the crowd and he's immediately swamped by feminine flesh, someone fisting his hair and forcing him face first into the bosom of a tall brunette decorated with the scars of a brawler. She smells like island fruit and musk and beer, and her big hands, calloused and clever, rub at the front of his sarong with the skill of someone well practised. She pins him up against the mural wall and he coils an arm about her neck, takes his cigarette out of his mouth with his free hand so he can kiss along the sweep of her collarbone.  
  
She chuckles into his ear. "Smokers are all the same. Mouth, mouth, mouth. How about I suck you off, huh? That suit you?"  
  
"Oh fuck, yes!" Shit. He sounds so desperate. Pathetic.  
  
She just laughs and drops to her knees to work at his sarong.  
  
But from here he can see the scar tracing along the top curve of her right breast. It's rough with the hatching pattern of old stitching, makes dimples in the soft flesh, and the sight of it, the angle of it . . .  
  
He looks up at the platform.  
  
Zoro's gone. The priests, the other virgins, everyone on that platform is gone.  
  
" _Fuck,_ " hisses Sanji.  
  
"That's the idea," says the woman, and it's not fair, it's not _fair_ , her mouth is right in front of his cock, her plush lips are open and he's so goddamn hard it aches in his balls and in his belly, but Nami-san will kill him if he abandons Zoro just to get his dick wet. The thought of her wrath if anything happens to Zoro on his watch has Sanji's lust cooling so fast he swears it's condensation instead of sweat on his skin.  
  
He stuffs his cigarette back into his mouth and sucks in a deep breath, the nicotine steadying him as he gently presses the woman away. "No, I'm sorry. I just realized I can't. I can't." His hands are trembling. She's going to think he's such a loser.  
  
She raises an eyebrow. Taps her fingers along the side of Sanji's wilting erection. "Nervous? It's okay. We can do other things." And then she's grabbing her own tits and pressing them together, pushing them up against his cock and it's just too much. Blood doesn't so much flow as _fountain_ from his nose, the force of it sending him staggering backward into the potted fern where he promptly loses his footing and topples headfirst into the fronds.  
  
He flails helplessly in the foliage, getting blood everywhere, narrowly avoiding swallowing his fucking cigarette, and making the leaves smolder with the fires of his humiliation literally blazing about him. Yet another Hell Memory has been born.  
  
By the time he surfaces the moment is not just gone, it's fled and taken the investors' money. Sanji's would-be partner has left with it, probably drifting off to find someone who's not a total embarrassment. Hopefully she will get incredibly drunk on all the free-flowing booze and won't remember him enough to spread this sad story.  
  
"Take a miracle to get me hard anytime soon," he groans, scrubbing the dirt from his face, picking wilted leaves from his hair. He glances around the town square. Whimpers. They've started peeling off their sarongs. "Maybe not. Shi~~t. All these lovelies and I can't even get a taste. That dumbass had better thank me for this. Thank me on his _knees._ "  
  
And fuck if that mental image -Zoro on his knees, Zoro crawling forward to rub his face against Sanji's shoe, Zoro humbled and goddamn thankful for it- doesn't add to Sanji's problem. He stares at his dick almost in disbelief. It's a hot idea, makes his blood boil and his mouth dry but he has those thoughts all the time and he's not sixteen anymore. He shouldn't be this hard, balls swollen and pulled tight, cock pushing determinately past the opened folds of his sarong to drool precome onto the fabric to make a sizable wet spot down its front.  
  
He touches himself gingerly. Winces at the shivery feeling of pleasure, at the torment of fabric rubbing against his skin. How the hell is he supposed to go anywhere like this? Do anything like this?  
  
He bites his lip, squirming and swearing under his breath. Maybe if he just rubs one out quick? But this doesn't feel like something he can burn away in a few short moments. It feels deep and hot and strange. Like his skin is too tight. Like his bones are on fire. Like he's got the Red Genie again, balancing on a knife edge of hallucination.  
  
Like this is all wrong, wrong, _wrong._  
  
He pulls his cigarette from his mouth. Grits his teeth. And then lifts one leg and very firmly, very deliberately, jams the lit end of his cigarette into the back bend of his knee, where the skin is thinest, softest. Tender.  
  
Air whistles through his nose as he sucks in breath, tears bead in his eyes, the pain stabs up his thigh and down into his calf like it's trying to shuck the muscles from his bones.  
  
He's still half hard.  
  
He staggers back to the mural wall and plasters his back against the cool stone. It does little to help kill the heat of lust but at least it offers him support better than his shaking legs as he frantically searches for a way out of this mess.  
  
Then his eyes light on the bottlebrush tree where Nami-san and Robin-chan were sitting.  
  
Are they up there right now, their bodies as inflamed as his? Will they strip naked as all the other women have, letting their sarongs drift down through the leaves, unnoticed and unmourned as they frantically try to cool themselves, slender hands fluttering like the wings of a bird, fanning their faces, their heaving breasts.  
  
Are their cheeks flushed pink, bright spots of colour almost feverish in intensity? Have their eyes grown dark with lust, their nipples hard, their most intimate folds wet and slick and aching with emptiness? Has Robin-chan, experienced Robin-chan, pulled Nami-san close and shown her how to ease the ache inside with deft fingers? Grown a garden gentle hands to pull Nami-san's legs wider, coaxed her to grind down on the rough bark of the branch and into Robin-chan's waiting touch?  
  
Touch . . . or tongue. A slick line of muscle sprouted from the tree branch to burrow into Nami-san's wetness, lap gently and tease her clit? Plunge inside to feel every squeeze, every throb of muscle in the depths of Nami-san's body, and Sanji is consumed, body cloaked in the roiling blaze of his lust and there is only one choice here and that is to _run the fuck away_ before he does something unforgivable.  
  
Because he knows now that whatever's going on here isn't natural. And he would never-! He _could_ never-!  
  
Desperation drives him as it did back on that hellish okama island, driving him up, up into the sky, running on air as he would on land, clear over the crowd to the rooftops and away, dripping flames and tears of frustration and rage.  
  
He lands a few blocks away on the flat rooftop someone is using as a kitchen garden. He buries his face in the planter of herbs, inhaling the sharp, comforting scent of basil and coriander, and feeling the heat slowly fade from his body. When he surfaces he feels almost like himself again, and he's able to take stock of his situation.  
  
Part of him is screaming about the others. Brook and Franky are old enough, experienced enough, to look after themselves, and Robin-chan and Nami-san should be safe together in their tree. But what about Luffy? The crazy shit a guy made of rubber could get into in an island wide orgy is a bit much for even Sanji's imagination. And Usopp! What about Usopp?  
  
Usopp, who's shy and insecure. Usopp, who's saving himself for Kaya.  
  
Sanji comes very, very close to going after him.  
  
But Usopp is on shore with Luffy and the others. He might wind up a little scorched around the edges, a bit battered and bruised, and probably a lot humiliated . . . but he'll be safe. He's with their nakama, after all.  
  
And Zoro is alone.  
  
Sanji glances at the sun and does a rough estimate. It's difficult here on an island, where the shadows are different and the sun is hidden by buildings and trees, but he's pretty sure it not much past eight. That gives him about four hours to rescue their missing swordsman.  
  
At least finding him should be relatively simple. The priests are leading so Zoro's terrible sense of direction shouldn't come into play, and Nami-san had said the temple is extremely conspicuous. It's a tall step-pyramid at the edge of the forest on the east side of the city, heavy with multi-coloured carvings and extensive gardens. He squints in that direction. It's hard to tell against the chaotic backdrop of blooming flowers and festival banners, but he's pretty sure he's spotted the silhouette of a pyramid against the sunrise.  
  
He goes to the edge of the balcony and brushes aside the large, glossy leaves of a black pepper vine, peers down into the streets. They are alive and writhing, the orgiastic mob like some strange land-bound anemone, limbs reaching toward him, toward meat, toward prey. There is no safety for him there. He will have to use the high road.  
  
He leaps into the air once again. His feet find purchase on his fear and his rage and carry him across the sky toward the rising sun.


	7. Chapter 7

Sanji lands in a puff of cigarette smoke and pollen, touching down on the rooftop of the low, flat building directly in front of the temple grounds. It's a warehouse, one among many, he realizes as he scans the area. It seems an odd choice as a neighbour to a holy site until he registers the perfume in the air, sees the hundreds of vines draped on trellises in the temple's vast gardens. Vanilla orchids. Here are the plants that have made the island so famous.  
  
They're magnificent, towering well over the height of a man, and their coils are heavy with blossoms and beans. He's only seen vanilla plants a few times before, but even he can tell that these are lush, not just fertile but _fecund_. If this is the work of the island god then its blessing is generous indeed.  
  
More signs of the god's work are on the temple itself. The building is step pyramid like Nami-san had described this morning, but it's unlike any he's seen in Alabasta or Skypiea. It's so ornate it looks more like a construction of lace than of stone, with intricate geometric shapes engraved on every flat surface, and on the edge of every one of its fourteen levels it has long, low box planters filled to overflowing with masses of purple flowers. Anywhere else he'd think it was lavender but here? He's almost positive those are gigantic saffron crocuses.  
  
The sheer wealth this place represents is staggering, and he has to take a moment to sit and smoke and calm himself down. Never before has he so well understood Nami-san's passionate materialism, and he is guiltily thankful she has no idea of the true value of these gardens. Things would be a hell of a lot more complicated if they had to escape while hauling a few acres of vegetation.  
  
_Maybe I can snag just a couple of seedlings on my way out?_  
  
The temptation is incredible, especially with his cook's soul shrieking at him about fresh vanilla every day, but he steels himself against it and turns his attention to the acolytes tending the plantation. All of them wear short linen kilts and the strange wooden flower masks, carry huge wicker baskets slung over their shoulders. They make their way through the gardens along old wooden walkways, harvesting beans as they go, watched by the robed and masked priests who play supervisors to various sections of the gardens.  
  
Green haired idiots and morons in straw hats might have gone charging down there as soon as they arrived, but Sanji is the brains of their Monster Trio, and he prides himself on a bit more subtlety than that.  
  
And it's a good thing he looks before he leaps. Seeing the priests around the half-naked acolytes brings back his earlier observation: it is impossible to tell the sex of a priest in those robes.  
  
_How the hell am I going to make sure I don't harm any ladies?_  
  
It's a real danger. There's nothing to give away their sex, no hint of breast or hip under the heavy robes, the priests' postures all unnaturally straight, their walks a uniform glide. Even their voices give no clue when they call out instructions to the acolytes, those freakish masks distorting the sound into something hollow and inhuman.  
  
Sanji shudders, mind conjuring horrific pictures of a mask cracking under the sole of his shoe, wooden petals falling away and reveal the living blossom underneath. A woman's lovely face . . . crushed and bruised by his attack.  
  
He swallows back bile and sets his jaw. No, a frontal assault is absolutely out of the question. It's a shame because he'd been looking forward to working out some of his frustrations by kicking down a few dozen walls, but the risk is too great.  
  
He settles on the warehouse roof, sucking on his cigarette, smoke curling out of his nose in ephemeral question marks and his legs dangling over the edge. The building's stucco is hard and uncomfortable under his ass and the sun is starting to ripen toward its crushing midday heat, but Sanji barely notices, mind too busy paging through recipes for solutions to this mess.  
  
Subterfuge is the only thing that's going to get him into that temple, and since he can't think of a single damn thing to say to get them to let him in, it's going to have to be infiltration. He doesn't dare lay a hand on a priest, but those acolytes are fair game, and they seem to go into the temple on a regular basis. He should be able to corner someone in the back rows of the plantations and steal their mask. Easy enough.  
  
He still wishes he had Brook with him. That ability of his to send his soul scouting about would be really useful right about now, and for the second time Sanji seriously considers going back to get the others.  
  
But how long would it take him to find them? Even counting haki, he's only got -he checks the sun's position again- maybe three and a half hours, and his crewmates could be anywhere in the city, hell, could be anywhere on the island by now.  
  
And that's assuming that Sanji could keep himself on task. He shudders again as fear sinks icy fangs into his guts. He's a man of passions, love and lust burning hot in his heart, but never has he felt such an uncontrollable, all-consuming _blaze_ before. It had burnt away common sense and made ash of inhibitions, left him seared and tender and ready to be devoured by his baser instincts.  
  
Luck had seen him through that but he knows better than to think he can dodge the bullet a second time. Just the memory of it, of a welcoming ocean of soft breasts and curving hips and sweet mouths ready to kiss and beg and suckle on the delicate skin of his dick-  
  
He sits back down and pinches his thigh in a vicious twist of skin and flesh until tears bead his eyes and his erection half-wilts again. Shit. _Fuck_. He hadn't even noticed he'd stood up to go back. Talk about dangerous thoughts.  
  
Thoughts? No. He and his sex drive are old friends and these aren't his usual fantasies, not the temptations of his everyday life. These are more like . . . compulsions.  
  
The word blooms in his brain with a slow unfurling of images: the wild eyes of the crowd. The energy crackling through it that wasn't so much frenetic as frantic, not desirous but desperate. His own body turned against him in ways even the mermaids of Fishman Island hadn't managed.  
  
The oily smile of that vendor back on Mayshee.  
  
He is well and truly scared now but it only makes the heat between his legs _worse_ , his instincts to fight and to fuck twining together in an awkward knot of hormones. It has him wriggling on his rooftop perch and, ironically, has his mind going back to the whole reason he's here in the first place because despite himself he is fucking _conditioned_ , this rush of fear and lust only ever surfacing around Zoro.  
  
Not often and not ever to be admitted to, but when Zoro puts on that goddamn bandana and stomps across the battlefield shedding blood and cleaving souls, his humanity falling away to reveal the demon underneath, Sanji just gets so goddamn hard. And when Zoro's black aura howls like a beast unleashed and Asura surges forth Sanji wants nothing more than to take it and tame it, bend it to his will and bend it over a table and fuck it into submission, conquering his fear in the most primal of ways. Make it howl for a whole new reason.  
  
These landbound fools think they can fuck Zoro? They might as well try to stick their dicks in a shark, and oh god what if it's not a man but a _woman_ who tries to bed him, who comes face to face with Asura unleashed and gripped by the island's unnatural lusts?  
  
_I have to find him. I have to find him right fucking now._  
  
Curses ride his cigarette smoke up toward the merciless sun. There is no longer any question about going back for the others. Not when he's got to protect the island's ladies from the consequences of Zoro's virginity.  
  
_All of this because the idiot is too damn dense to notice everyone panting after his ass. Well, that's not going to be a problem once I get my hands on him,_ Sanji promises himself. _Pop his cherry, nothing. I'll make goddamn cherries jubilee. Rub off that veneer of mysterious loner that suckers people in. Teach him to stop being such a cocktease walking around shirtless with his tits bared for anyone to goggle at and then not even put out . . ._  
  
The maze of light and shadow and twisting vines finally settles into a recognizable picture, the movements of the acolytes and priests into a dance who's pattern Sanji can follow. A fierce smile stretches itself across his face. He clambers to his feet only to crouch down into a series of runner's stretches. He'll have to sprint for this next part.  
  
He gets into position. For a single heartbeat he is still, hands and feet braced on the rooftop, gaze locked on his target.  
  
And then he's off, and not even the smoke from his cigarette can catch him.  
  
~  
  
The peony mask is a lot lighter than Sanji thought it would be, the weight barely noticeable on his head. Balsa wood, maybe? Franky could tell him. Sanji is a chef, not a carpenter, and so all he knows is that his visibility is cut down drastically, his is hearing muffled, his nose is filled with the scent of unicorn orchids and someone else's sweat.  
  
Funny how he'd thought the scent of those flowers pleasant when they were a crown wreathed around Zoro's head, but now he finds it sickly sweet and cloying.  
  
Maybe it's because everything else is blotted out. Even here, walking through the vanilla plantation with blossoms the size of his hand and ripe beans hanging heavy about him, all Sanji can smell is the inside of the mask. It cuts him off from the rest of the world as much as the narrow eye slits and his deadened hearing, leaves him feeling off balance and strange. Claustrophobic. He wishes he could smoke.  
  
He also wishes he'd be able to do without the acolyte's sweaty kilt. Wearing it makes his skin crawl, but his festival sarong would never have worked so he sucks it up, promises himself a good scrub in the longest, hottest bath he can stand back on the Sunny, and adds it to the list of things to make Zoro suffer for.  
  
At least no one's noticed his swap-in. He'd been worried by all the flailing his chosen victim had done when Sanji'd wrapped his legs around the unlucky bastard's neck in a sleeper hold, but now that Sanji's actually wearing one of the masks he realizes he had more than just luck on his side. Peripheral vision in one of these things is essentially nil.  
  
That doesn't mean he's free to do as he pleases. Direct line of sight is perfectly clear, and the tangle of vines and twisting lanes of the plantation mean he can't be sure who might be watching, hidden by leaf and flower and green shadow. Even haki can only tell him the location of those nearby, not what they can see.  
  
So dropping his act, no matter how isolated he seems, is not an option. With that in mind he makes his way toward the temple in at a slow, meandering pace. He walks down the endless corridors of towering vines, stuffing ripe bean pods into the wicker basket he stole along with the mask, the wooden walkway creaking beneath his feet. The growing sunlight turns the leaves from deep jade to rich emerald and still he minds his pace, careful not to look rushed or out of place, careful not to slip on the worn planks of the wooden walkways, careful not to think too hard about the slow inching of the sun across the sky.  
  
Good thing this mask also hides his snarl of frustration, an ugly curl of lips that bare his teeth gritted against the curses boiling in his heart.  
  
Harvesting the bean pods helps. A pleasant twist and yank and snap as they come free, it's especially satisfying when he imagines they're the balls of a troublesome green virgin. His basket grows heavy. The great temple pyramid looms larger and larger as he makes his way closer. The rope strap for the basket cuts into his shoulder but it's got nothing on the gaze of the priest he walks by, the alien wooden face of a frangipani turning to follow his path, the gaze from those narrow eyeslits feeling like twin Pacifista beams burning into his skin. His own sweat adds to the sticky cling of the borrowed kilt.  
  
Man or a woman? It's the not knowing that really gets to him. It's like being back on Okama island, full of second guesses and hidden traps.  
  
This whole island has been like that, and Sanji is forcibly reminded of the flytraps Usopp grows in his garden on the Sunny. Beautiful, horrible plants with sweet nectar to lure in insects and fangs to close up tight. This temple rising above him is nothing more than an elaborate honey trap, and here he is, crawling deeper into the maw.  
  
Even the sight of the entrance finally looming before him can't shake the dread - how can it when the damn thing is such an enormous black void, almost twice his height and three times as wide as a regular door, with intricate carvings hanging down from the lintel that are way too much like teeth, the flowering vines dripping down like ropes of saliva.  
  
_Shi~~~t. A cook is supposed to feed people, not get eaten himself!_  
  
But it's the only way forward, and so he joins the other acolytes with full baskets and walks into darkness.  
  
~  
  
The inside of the temple is hot and muggy. The space is lit by clusters of huge, glowing orange flowers in the shape of paper lanterns, planted in low pots at regular intervals. Their light is dim but steady, and it shows all too clearly how the moist corridor walls are horribly alive.  
  
Covered in moss and ferns, vines and blossoms, the walls are choked with greenery and it fucking moves. The thick leaves pat at shoulders and tug at kilts like they're curious blind children and not green things without brains, their long rootlets offer strange, pseudo-loving caresses. Sanji's got a hell of a time keeping himself from flinching and giving himself away.  
  
How many maidens came down these halls as innocent offerings only to find themselves petted and groped by these freakish plants? The line of their slender legs traced by fern frond, the curve of breast and hip cupped by green tendrils? How many of them found their bodies trembling, waking slowly from innocent bashfulness to flushed eagerness?  
  
Did these fucking plants do it to Zoro?  
  
Did they make him blush and falter in front of all the watching priests and acolytes as his body, that magnificent body he's poured years of pain and sacrifice into, turned against him like a cursed blade and cut his defences away, left him vulnerable before the watching crowd? Did they make him _squirm?_  
  
_I bet they did. Stupid pain junky doesn't know it but his body is starving for touch that doesn't hurt. Even half-assed petting from a plant probably sets him off. Gotta teach him to be more discriminate._  
  
Certainly it doesn't affect Sanji other than to give him the creeps, and around him, acolytes and priests bustle about, indifferent to the groping foliage. Sanji follows behind the others with filled baskets deeper and deeper into the guts of the temple, up a flight of stairs, then again, then again, until he is sweating in rivers instead of damp trickles, his mouth dry, his shoulders sore. They go further in still - have they reached the centre of the pyramid or are they all the way across it? He's completely turned around in this damp darkness, the living walls blotting out his ability to orient himself with haki.  
  
Then, light. Bright, clear sunlight spilling out from one of the doorways up ahead. The acolytes pick up their pace, taking Sanji along with them and into a haven of clean, sunny space.  
  
It's the drying room for the vanilla beans. The walls and floor are bare, simple stone, and the vast room is filled rows and rows of stone tables with beans spread out across them. Above them is an enormous slab of glass -no, the cracks and facets tell him it's actually a huge crystal- that lets in the sun, and rows of mirrors catch the light and bounce it back, focusing it on the tables, slowly browning the harvest.  
  
And here is the humanity Sanji has been missing. The acolytes drop their baskets with heartfelt groans, rub their shoulders and backs, scratch their asses and bitch to each other in cheerful voices about the work, about breakfast, about missing the festival. Familiar animal habits that remind Sanji that the masks are just masks. A little of the tension eases from his shoulders.  
  
It's just so pleasantly _normal_ . . . and that's when Sanji finally notices that none of these people have been driven lust-mad. Even his own passions have cooled, his dick finally limp and tame again, his brain no longer frothing with lurid images of naked lovelies, the flame of his passion back down to its usual smolder.  
  
Possibilities flash through his mind leading him to only one conclusion: _It's the masks. These things aren't just religious, they're also some kind of gas mask!_  
  
No wonder they muffle everything. The smell of the unicorn orchids is probably what they use to purify the air.  
  
_I'll have to grab extras for the guys and . . . and . . . ._ His eyes bead with tears for lost opportunities. _And Nami-san and Robin-chan. Dammit!_  
  
But that will have to wait until after he's found Zoro. He turns his attention firmly back to chatter around him, hoping for clues.  
  
Mostly it's complaints and good natured teasing, with a couple of people talking about heading off to other work stations - the curing room, the sweating room. Picking saffron from the crocuses. Then,  
  
"How about it, Jean? Want to come with us and grab an early lunch?"  
  
An acolyte with a tulip mask shakes his head. "I can't. I've been tagged for extra duty bringing drink to the sacrifice after this. Apparently he's as thirsty as a palm tree and they need someone to haul down some extra jugs."  
  
_Zoro, you lush! You said you'd be careful not to go overboard with the drinking!_  
  
"Ha ha! Serves you right, slacker. And you thought the priests didn't notice you creeping off early this past week."  
  
"Fuck you. Don't think I don't know it was you who tipped them off." Jean wilts against a stone table, tulip head hanging low and shoulders slumped. He whines, "Dammit, those jugs are really heavy! I'm gonna bust my back."  
  
Sanji's a man who doesn't waste food or luck. "Oy!" he calls. "I've got nothing planned. Want some help?"  
  
Jean perks up. "Really? You mean it? Yeah, I'd love some help, thanks."  
  
"My pleasure," says Sanji with a grim, hidden smile. Because it will be. 


	8. Chapter 8

"Are you sure this time?" Sanji hisses. _It doesn't matter if it's flowers or moss, none of these fucking plant heads could find their asses with both hands and a map. With my luck the whole procession got lost and never even made it to the temple._  
  
"Yes! Yes! I'm sorry! It's just that damn T crossing always mixes me up." Jean bobs his head apologetically, and with his quivering shoulders and the wooden tulip mask, he bears a striking resemblance to a blossom in a strong wind. "At least with you helping I won't have to make a second trip and get lost all over again. Shit, these jugs are heavy."  
  
The gourd-shaped jugs are only a little over the standard size, and though hefty, certainly not heavy enough to bitch about the way this guy has been doing. Especially not when the lazy bastard is only carrying two, and Sanji's got the remaining six dangling from his fists. If Jean is like this all the time than no wonder the other acolytes ratted him out to the priests. Sanji himself is hard pressed not to deliver a swift kick in the ass.  
  
He grinds his teeth down on his temper. "Just make sure you get us there before the sacrificial ritual, or we'll never hear the end of it from the priests."    
  
"U~~~gh. I didn't even think of that," moans Jean, and promptly starts another round of mumbled curses and low, whimpering whining. ". . . worked like slaves . . . always pushing me around . . . my poor damn back . . . "  
  
At least he starts walking faster. But is it going to be fast enough? It's impossible to say how long they've been wandering but Sanji's internal clock is insisting he's overdue with lunch prep, and that can only mean they're dangerously close to noon.  
  
If only he could ditch this idiot! But in all fairness, it's not surprising Jean got lost. The inside of the temple is more than just a maze, it's a living creature that shifts and changes around you. Flowers open and close, leaves turn from jade to chartreuse, from emerald to olive. Entire tapestries of vines reweave themselves. Finding any kind of landmark is impossible. The only option is to memorize the floor plans as you go, and Sanji just hasn't got that kind of skill.  
  
_I appreciate you more and more every day, sweet Nami-san!_  
  
So he's stuck with Tulip-head and Tulip-head's bitching-  
  
". . . not even a thank you . . . don't see why we even have to bother, the guy's already drunk enough juice to get him cuddly . . . "  
  
Sanji's head snaps up. Juice? This isn't alcoho-  
  
_Wait, did he say cuddly? Zoro is being cuddly?! WHO IS HE BEING CUDDLY WITH?_  
  
Reason and wrath tussle for priority, and it's a good thing, too, because it keeps him from blurting anything out and giving the game away.  
  
"Who-" Wrong _fucking_ priority! "Uh, I'm surprised he's drinking so much juice. I heard people who saw him at the festival saying he was a real lush."  
  
Jean snickers. "Yeah, pirates are like that. But when he got to the temple at it was all 'keep my head clear' and 'being respectful to the god.' Tell you what I think: the guy's worried too much booze'll keep him from getting it up." A shrug. "Well, no way that'll happen now. This stuff's potent enough in the ceremonial cocktail. Drinking it straight like he's been doing will make him ripe enough for anyone to pick."  
  
_I can't believe it. Marimo even fucked up drinking juice, and now a-anyone . . . anyone could . . ._  
  
He licks lips gone suddenly dry. Just how out of it is Zoro? Jean had called him 'cuddly.' Was that a guess or had Jean seen- had he been cuddled?  
  
Had he been taken into those arms and felt the corded muscle flex under scarred bronze skin, pressed against the firm swell of pecs and the ripple of perfect abs? Had he gloried in the animal warmth, in the sea-spray and metal tang of Zoro's scent, in the awful strength under awesome control?  
  
Had he touched _that_ scar?  
  
The urge to ram a foot up Jean's ass suddenly redoubles- triples- howls within Sanji like a maddened wolf of flames and venom. The only thing that's holding him back is the need to find Zoro as fast as possible and kick _him_ instead because how fucking dare he! Where's all that vaunted self control as a swordsman, huh? It's one thing to let crewmates treat him like a combination chew toy and safety blanket, but getting grabby with these weedy acolytes is an embarrassment for everyone.  
  
Or was it with those freakish priests? Shit! With the masks and those robes it'd be like cuddling a tablecloth wrapped around a Shandian totem pole, but Zoro's probably too out of it to care.  
  
A horrible thought unfurls in Sanji's mind: What if Zoro is cuddling someone _right now?_ What if Sanji walks into the sacrificial chamber or whatever and Zoro's wrapped himself, seaweed-like, about some stranger?  
  
What if it's a woman?!  
  
He teeters between horror and outrage, heart rabbiting in his chest, sweat beading at his temples, at his shoulders, sliding in cold trails down his back-  
  
They turn the corner.  
  
"Finally," Jean groans. "There's the door."  
  
It's big and rectangle shaped and probably magnificent but who the fuck cares because Zoro's behind it but it's closed and there's a priest in the way.  
  
Sanji doesn't even bother to try and identify what flower the mask is, he just pushes past Jean and stomps forward. Barks, "Juice for that dumbass sacrifice!"  
  
The words come out of his mouth and he's dimly aware they aren't what he'd been planning, but at this point the bottoms of his sandals are smouldering with the flames of his rage, little licks of flame curving about his ankles, and he's hanging onto his temper by the barest threads.  
  
Somewhere behind him Jean is babbling apologies about rudeness and being late. "My friend is just upset because I got us lost," he says in whimpering, servile tones. "The god hasn't awakened yet, has it? I mean, we aren't that late!"  
  
The flower mask tilts to the side, more, _more,_ bends much too far for a human neck, and those blank black eyeholes offer no reassurance.  
  
But the priest steps aside and, with a stroke at the living walls, coaxes the vines to lift the massive rock slab of the door.  
  
"ENTER."  
  
"Gimme your jugs and get lost," Sanji snaps at Jean.  
  
"Yes! Right! Thank you!" And mumbled, "Asshole."  
  
There's a brief clatter as Jean hands him the last of the juice.  
  
Sanji doesn't watch him leave, has already wiped the memory of Jean from his mind by the time he is past the door and into the sacrificial room, has only one thought left as he walks into that room and sets eyes on Zoro:  
  
_He's alone._  
  
Sanji's hands begin to shake.  
  
Behind him he can hear the stone door sliding back into place but it barely registers. All he can see is Zoro, and the ridiculous way they've got him not so much on an altar as in a nest in the centre of the room- a mound of vines and roots from an enormous orchid plant woven together, the plant itself a fantastic thing with white and saffron blossoms big enough to make Chopper a rowboat.  
  
Its green and gold are more rich than any gem or metal, caught as it is in a huge pool of sunlight that spills down from the enormous crystal skylight, with shimmering curtains of pollen drifting in the hot, humid air. And Zoro sits beneath it in that nest like a lone tiger lily, the tangerine fabric of his sarong spread out around him like petals.  
  
That damn sarong. It's covering the vines and not much else. Zoro's yanked it open to sit in his usual cross-legged lounge and now you can see abso-fucking-lutely everything of him. The muscles, so perfectly formed that sculptors would weep in jealousy. The skin so flawed, a patchwork of white scars and brown flesh.  
  
His cock.  
  
It's a ripe fruit hanging between his thighs, flushed deep rose and beaded with sweat, and Sanji finds that he is suddenly _starving._  
  
He sets the jugs down at the foot of the altar. Scrambles up the vines so quickly he practically air walks. And then he is standing before Zoro, staring down at him, speechless at the sight.  
  
Here is the soft creature from the night before. Those strong legs opened invitingly, the straight shoulders that have been allowed to curve, the powerful chest heaving in slow, deep breaths. There is nothing about him now that speaks of the swordsman, of the fighter. All thats left is a beautiful man in the grip of arousal, hot and restless and ready for someone, for anyone, to take what he's offering.  
  
And then he looks up at Sanji, sloe-eyed and cheeks bright with blush. His tongue darts out in a flash of wet pink to lick his lips. He speaks, and his voice is deep and rumbling and scrapes on Sanji's bones. "You're not the god."  
  
The god? The _god?!_  
  
"What the hell do you care," Sanji hisses. He sets a foot on Zoro's shoulder and shoves, sending him tumbling backward, then pins him there with a foot planted on Zoro's sternum. "Look at you sitting here with your legs spread like an invitation! Idiot! Moron! Mossbrained fuckhead! Do you even know where your swords are?"  
  
A flash of recognition in that hazy gaze. "Shit cook?"  
  
"Of course it's me," snarls Sanji, and yanks off his mask. "Did you really think I'd let you go through with this bullshit?"  
  
Two things happen:  
  
First, Sanji inhales so he can start swearing in earnest, his brain full of fire and scandalized outrage and nothing at all about the dangers of unfiltered air.  
  
Second, the sun reaches its noontime peak, and its light blazes down onto the orchids surrounding the two men.  
  
Sanji's world ignites. Or is that him? He holds up his hands and stares at them blankly, feels his heartbeat thrumming in his fingertips, his blood rushing through every artery and vein. He could swear his bones are glowing, white hot incandescence that glints through the pores of his skin.  
  
The humid air weighs on him as if he's been bodily dunked in hot dishwater, his limbs gone slow and heavy and clumsy, but he _burns_ despite the damp, his body as hot as a griddle, his throat dry as toast.  
  
And his dick, oh god his dick and his balls. Swollen so bad they feel about to split open, over-ripe and ready to spill his juices, so sensitive the worn cotton kilt feels like the scratchiest of wool. He whimpers and claws at the fabric, tears it from his body with rough, desperate jerks. Falls to his knees in relief when he finally frees himself.  
  
Before him lies Zoro, still sprawled on his back, spread-legged and face gone scarlet, fingers digging into the vines. He pants open-mouthed, flash of strong white teeth and pink tongue and all of it wet.  
  
Sanji crawls on top of him.  
  
"San-"  
  
He seals their mouths together in a brutal kiss. This isn't the coaxing caress of last night, this is the slaking of pure, elemental thirst, and Sanji will not be denied. He fists a hand in that short green hair, yanks Zoro's head into a better angle. The bastard tries to shove at Sanji's shoulders but he's easily put in his place with a hard tweak of his left nipple and a warning bite at his lower lip.  
  
But drinking Zoro is like drinking the sea - a betrayal that keeps you coming back despite yourself. That first kiss only makes Sanji burn hotter, makes his cock ache and _ache._  
  
He keens into Zoro's mouth. Wishes he could crawl inside and lick the man's beating heart, drink his lifeblood and his fucking _soul_ if that's what it takes to quench this thirst. Desperate and savage as he is, even his precious hands become claws. They rake down Zoro's side, shredding skin and tearing a groan from Zoro's throat.  
  
It's the sound of great oak bending before a hurricane. Zoro's body ripples under Sanji's, a slow undulation that presses their cocks together. Heat against heat, the velvety skin of Zoro's dick like a blessing that Sanji's not shy about accepting. He ruts against it with quick, hard rolls of his hips. Kicks away the vines trying to grab his ankles so he can brace his legs in a proper crouch, and grinds down with all the leverage he can muster. Finally darts his free hand down to grab both their cocks and press them close together, wetting his palm with their mingled pre-come before starting up an urgent rhythm jerking them off.  
  
It makes Zoro thrash beneath him, legs flailing, arms flexing, his stupid sarong bunching and tearing beneath him, but his titanic strength seems as absent as Sanji's clothing. He manages turn his head so he can gasp, "W-wait! The plants-"  
  
"Shut up," mumbles Sanji, chasing after those lips. He presses kisses to the arc of Zoro's cheekbone, tastes sweat and   the faint tang of fruit juice. It zings and tingles in his mouth. Never mind the kissing! Licking is so much better when it soaks his tongue in flavour this intense. He twists Zoro's head around and laps at the strong line of neck muscles, traces the sharp edge of jaw with the tip of his tongue.  
  
Whimpers and short, breathy moans spill out of Zoro's mouth, a satisfying chorus that's ruined when the bastard insists on trying to talk again, choking out something like, "Plant-"  
  
Plants! Sanji's got his fingers wrapped around Zoro's cock and he's still talking about fucking. _plants._  
  
"I'll _give_ you plants," Sanji hisses savagely into the shell of Zoro's ear. He lets go of Zoro's hair and reaches out for the nearest vine, a ropey thing that languidly twines around his wrist like a snake. He yanks on it until he finds the end and then, with a savage little smile, crams it into Zoro's mouth. "Suck them off if you like them so much!"  
  
Zoro freezes, muscles locked tight and eye wide, mouth full of vine that twitches, coils, then shoves its way into Zoro's mouth. For a moment he chokes. And then his reflexes kick in and he swallows and the vine goes in and in and _in_ and Zoro is helpless to do anything but take it. His one feeble effort to pull it out is quickly stopped - Sanji grabs both Zoro's hands thrusts them into the waiting grip of more vines.  
  
Those vines wind tight around Zoro's arms, braiding themselves into living shackles that first jerk his arms straight and taut, then haul him slowly, inexorably upward.  
  
The shift of his body as it's puled from between Sanji's legs is unexpected and strange and so, so good, their bodies sliding together in a long, simultaneous stroke of flesh against flesh: Sanji's cock sliding down Zoro's cock-hip-thigh, Zoro's trailing up Sanji's belly-chest-face, the two of them crying out and convulsing, going off like fireworks.  
  
White everywhere on Sanji. Spattered across his cheeks and caught in his hair, his eyelashes. Dripping down his chest and belly and mingling with the sweat of his body. Beaded on his trembling thighs. His mess and Zoro's.  
  
He kneels limply on the ground, sucking in great gulps of air and slapping away curious vines, tossing others toward Zoro. They catch on quick, abandoning him to curl around Zoro's legs, tendrils digging into firm muscle, leaves unfurling to press themselves lovingly against bronze skin. Sanji scrubs clean his eyes. Watches in fascination as the vines snake ever upward, binding sharply carved ankles and sculpted calves, twisting around the delicate curve of knees and up under the shredded remains of the sarong to grasp Zoro's thighs. Zoro groans, kicks, but it's weak, the flex and shift of his body more lurid than lethal in its living bindings.  
  
By now the rosy flush on Zoro's cheeks has spread up to the tips of his ears and down in a bright wash across neck and chest, sharp contrast against gold earrings and white scars and brown nipples. His eye has fluttered shut. His throat works without stop, swallowing around the vine in his mouth, spilling drool and some strange gold fluid the plant seems to be oozing. Sap? Nectar? Curious, Sanji staggers to his feet and comes close, presses himself chest to chest with Zoro, licks up the trail of spit at the corner of Zoro's mouth. Honey sweet.  
  
Zoro's growl is wet and muffled. His head twitches, trying to jerk away, but held in place by the plant thrusting itself in and out of his mouth. A most helpful plant. A most wonderful plant, Sanji decides, loving the way it's keeping Zoro still and finally shutting him up. Zoro's always at his best when he's quiet.  
  
Around them, the nest of vines and rootlets has slowly unwound into a writhing, twisting mass. The leaves of the orchid shift slowly, making living walls that curve around Sanji and Zoro, holding them close in a small green space, and the huge blossoms hang above them, eddies of their pollen drifting down in a continual drizzle.  
  
It coats Zoro like powdered sugar. His hair, the curve of his cheekbones, his shoulders. Sanji licks it from him in long swipes, down the line of his collarbone to suck at the hollow of his throat, pulling the softest little gasp out of Zoro. Just a momentary hitch in his breath past the wet sounds of the vine thrusting in his mouth.  
  
Sanji chuckles against Zoro's skin. "Like that?" He lays a kiss there. And when he grabs the narrow of Zoro's waist he presses his lips down and _sucks_ , hard and insistent, making Zoro arch his back into a beautiful curve for Sanji to slide his palms up, drawing Zoro in with mouth and hands, molding that strong body with his touch.  
  
Vines unfurl in his wake. They trace the path Sanji's hands have left, pressing into spine and digging into ribs, holding Zoro in the moment of weakness where he offered himself up and Sanji takes full advantage. His freed hands drop back down and grab that round ass. Finally, finally he gives it the squeeze he's been longing too. Sinks his fingers in and savours the firm feel of muscle, hauls Zoro's hips forward so they can grind cock on cock again.  
  
He pulls back from his kiss, groaning, the hickey he's left behind like a single red flower blooming at Zoro's throat. Pretty little ornament above those magnificent pecs shimmering with sweat and golden pollen, heaving with Zoro's every breath. The scar -that scar, the one Sanji watched being carved into Zoro's body- ripples like one of the vines around them, and Sanji wonders what would it be like to rub his dick against it. Feel the rough texture of it, the press of muscle to either side.  
  
"Shi~~~t. One of these days I wanna fuck your tits, Marimo-chan," moans Sanji.  
  
Zoro gasps. His mouth opens wider trying to suck in air and getting more vines instead, two more thrusting path his teeth and tongue to force into his throat, making his head tip back to ease their passage, making making his Adam's apple bob in a steady rhythm as more spit and sweet nectar trickle past his lips.  
  
His muscles tense and flex from his shoulders to his thighs, his ass clenching in Sanji's grip. Sanji hums appreciatively. Skims his thumbs upward and finds those dimples at the base of Zoro's spine. He presses gently.  
  
Then he adjusts his grip and spreads Zoro's ass cheeks.  
  
Low whine from Zoro. His brow furrows, his thighs try to shift close in the grip of the vines.  
  
Sanji leans in and kisses Zoro's ear, then indulges himself and tongues the golden drops of Zoro's earrings. "Marimo-chan's nervous again?" He chuckles. His fingers dip into Zoro's cleft and find the tender pucker of his entrance. "Dumbass. Fighting and fucking are the same, remember? So relax," he says, and whispers truth into Zoro's ear: "You were _made_ for this."  
  
He pushes one of his fingers in.  
  
It's everything he'd hoped for. The tight heat that clenches around his fingertip. The sudden jerk of Zoro's hips followed by an awkward shimmy, his body trapped between the press of Sanji's fingers from behind and the rub of Sanji's body in the front, the vines giving him a bare finger's width of leverage. Close as he is Sanji can feel the muscles of Zoro's belly tense, the surge of heat between Zoro's legs and the twitch of his half-hard dick.  
  
Sanji smirks. A cook's hands are his treasure: nimble, sensitive, and dexterous, and Sanji's are more so than most. It's no trouble for him to work Zoro's body open. Feather-light touches to tease the muscles. Using the clench and give to push deeper, dipping his fingers inside and stroking the velvet lining. And then . . . a firm rub at exactly the right spot.  
  
The startled yelp he gets is like good whiskey, heady stuff that makes Sanji's head spin and warms him to his toes, has him eagerly going back in for more. He works at stretching Zoro so he can cram in more fingers, gets both indexes and middle ones in and slowly, deliberately, spreads the muscles open.  
  
Zoro fucking _loves_ it. His hips cant backward, pushing against Sanji's fingers. Short, sharp little gasps drip from his lips along with the spit, harsh breaths rasp in his throat and out his nose. His cock fills so fast it must hurt, hard and insistent against Sanji's belly.  
  
_Yessss~_. Sanji's own cock is more than ready for round two. He rolls his hips forward, grinding himself against Zoro and starting up a rough rhythm he mimics with his fingers, dipping them into Zoro's body with deep thrusts each time he rolls forward, fucking Zoro front and back. He ruts against him with shameless abandon. Slicked by sweat and come, they move together, Sanji glorying in slide of his dick against Zoro's abs, in the brush of their balls when he pushes extra close, in the delicate tremble of Zoro's body.  
  
Sanji wishes he could really see Zoro's face for this, watch the expressions change as the stoic bastard discovers just what's been hidden in his own body, but this is good too. He rubs his face against Zoro's pecs, purring and cuddling like a cat, lapping at the scar. He's got three fingers of each hand into Zoro by now, stuffing him as full as he can.  
  
And then it's not just him pushing into Zoro.  
  
The vines binding Zoro's legs have curled upward, leaves joining Sanji in tenderly cupping Zoro's rump, tendrils unspooling to wind around Sanji's fingers and wiggle into Zoro's body. Sanji feels them snaking inside, weaving into a lattice that pulls Zoro open without mercy. More vines drop from above, dripping down Zoro's shoulders, flowing down his back to finally push into his ass.  
  
The feel of them is strange against Sanji's fingers, a slippery coolness that's almost reptilian. He can feel them shift and squeeze into Zoro, first one, then another, then a third, fourth - oh god, they are just ramming into him, stretching him beyond anything Sanji would have dared, and Zoro writhes in his bonds and croons, a low and happy sound Sanji's never dreamt the man could make.  
  
Sanji's fingers are trapped inside by the crush of the vines, pressed against Zoro's hot inner walls. He can feel every ripple of muscle, can feel Zoro's fucking heartbeat at his fingertips even as he hears it, ear pressed to Zoro's heaving chest. The rhythm gets under his skin, his own heart speeding to match and his hips and fingers moving in time.  
  
"You like this, I knew it, I knew you'd like it, knew you'd be perfect for it, make you see it, make you want it, make you crave it," Sanji babbles, every word a roll of his hips, a thrust of his dick. "Want it so bad you'll beg me for it."  
  
Zoro makes more sounds, sloppy, wet keening things of need and hunger and Sanji laughs breathlessly, dusts kisses across Zoro's chest.  
  
"Gonna show you . . . gonna. . . gonna _train_ you."  
  
Zoro cries out. Jerks as if struck by lightning, because of course, of course he'd love the idea of it, of being pushed and made to sweat and bleed and suffer for it.  
  
"World's. Greatest. _Slut._ "  
  
Zoro howls. Spit roasted on vines at either end, arms and legs bound and drawn taut, all he can do is writhe and flex and sweat and scream and come. Heavy, thick streams of semen that gush from him to splatter Sanji's chest and face, and the sight of it has Sanji coming too in pearly ropes on Zoro's belly and dick.  
  
But while Sanji finishes Zoro keeps going. Not in a gushing flood but in a slow, steady trickle, and the feel of the shifting vines in Zoro's ass give Sanji the answer. The damn things are milking Zoro's prostate, holding him at the wrenching peak. For anyone else it might have been too much, but this is Zoro, and he takes it with heartfelt moans and growls of pleasure, hips riding the push and thrust of the vines easily and fuck, just how deep are they in him?  
  
Sanji gets his answer from odd nudge at his stomach. Not Zoro's cock or a curious vine, but something . . . something . . .  
  
A bone deep shiver goes through Sanji's body. Pulling out and away from the Zoro's body is absolutely repulsive an idea but he thinks that- he has to _see,_ because-  
  
"Fucking hell," he whispers. He can barely hear himself past the ringing in his ears.  
  
He swallows thickly. Hesitates, then lays his hand on Zoro's belly.  
  
It shifts and moves beneath his palm, not with the flex of muscle but of something else. Something alien and strange pushing into Zoro's body as far as it can go, mapping him out from the inside, and when Sanji presses down, strokes a line from groin to navel, it matches him touch for touch.  
  
His gaze darts to Zoro's face only to find it half-obscured by a waterfall of delicate green tendrils. They cup Zoro's chin. Lay in delicate curls on his cheeks. Follow the whorls of his ears and stroke the lashes of his ruined eye. And over everything they ooze their sweet, clear nectar.  
  
And pollen.  
  
Great sheets of pollen falling from the blossoms above. No longer a simple drizzle but a veritable rain of gold.  
  
The pollen-laden air is gritty and hard to breath, and leaves Sanji so, so thirsty. He tries to push the need away because there's something in the way the vines cradle Zoro. Tender and possessive. In how they push into him as if trying to hollow him out.  
  
But Zoro's cock is still leaking. It's wet and glistening and juicy-plump pink, and Sanji's mouth is desert dry, his body oven-hot.  
  
He doesn't know what Zoro's dick tastes like yet.  
  
Shouldn't the cook sample every meal?  
  
(and he hasn't he fed Zoro to those vines?)  
  
He shakes his head. Licks his lips. There is something off about his thoughts but it's hard to focus. His hands are back between his legs, stroking himself furiously in an attempt to quench his need but seem to only make it worse. His mind is full of memories - endless days on a rock, starving and thirsting, crying and craving.  
  
(never again, never-ever, ever)  
  
He is vaguely aware of the light dimming as something huge looms over this little green space he's trapped in. White and gold.  
  
He doesn't care. He falls to his knees and swallows Zoro's cock, suckling the steady stream of come, lapping up the sweat. He's burning so hot inside he can't even tell if it helps.  
  
Desperation consumes him, and his mind fades into a haze of need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this took much, MUCH longer than anticipated due to life stuff. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll have to can doing regular updates. Sorry. Hopefully, though, this chapter was worth the wait!


	9. Chapter 9

Why is it that you can leave a place but not escape it?

It's been years since Sanji actually set foot on the terrible island of rock where he starved and sobbed and suffered as only a human can - not with despair, but with horrible, unquenchable _hope_.

Yet despite the ocean between them he's revisited this barren piece of hell countless times. In his idle thoughts. In dark memories and moments teetering before death. In nightmares.

And now . . . whatever this is.

He stands at the very edge of the stone cliff, bare feet chilled, toes curling over the lip. Behind him lies nothing but rock. Before him looms a spectacular sunset in sapphire and turquoise and lapis lazuli. And far bellow the golden ocean swirls and surges in its eternal dance.

"You fucked up the colours," says Sanji to the figure sitting beside him. "Some god you are."

Zeff just laughs. It makes his moustaches quiver, an odd sight on the enormous white and gold petals of his face. "A god? Me? Don't be stupid. I'm just old. Good thing, too. Or did you think a real god would be so generous to a spoilt brat like you?"

"I don't want to hear that from a weed with an entire island as its servants."

The plant god laughs again. Zeff's laugh, Zeff's body, but instead of his legs there are roots hanging over the edge beside Sanji. Long, ropey things of silver and green twisting down through the air toward the ocean bellow. "It's true. I'm spoilt as well. Spoilt and well loved." Its tone drops to a smug purr. "So many beauties around me crying out for my embrace. Sweet vanilla and lovely saffron. Pineapple, litchi, papaya. . ." A sly tilt of his blossom head up toward Sanji. "Marimo."

Fire crackles up the length of Sanji's calf as he raises his foot threateningly. "How 'bout I send you to live in Heaven like a real god, shitty plant?"

"Aren't you vicious. Or is the scenery getting to you?"

Bitterly, "What do _you_ think?"

"I think you're an ungrateful little _fuckhead_ ," hisses the god, the ocean below fleeing in a great wave before those savage words, the skies darkening with sudden clouds. "Sulking about being brought here when you're the one who's been starving himself for three years, and then raising your hand against the one who finally helped you fill your belly."

"I never asked for your help," yells Sanji, his foot slamming down on the stone where the god had been sitting moments before. Wheels to find it towering behind him on the rocky ledge, Zeff's body distorted into a strange, naked swaying thing, arms and legs braiding together into a fleshy stem, moustaches turning green and sprouting leaflets, enormous petals of his face fluttering in non-existent wind.

It says, "Lies." And, "You _prayed_ to me."

Sanji's flames vanish, snuffed by the cold talons of fear that grip his heart. His own mocking words echo through his brain: 'Please island god, grant this poor Mosshead a miracle and get him laid . . . '

". . . and while you're at it maybe work on that whole Zoro the whore thing," choruses the god, its voice outside Sanji's mind and yet inside as well, "please," an echo as distorted as what's become of Zeff's body, "and," the world wavering around him with each word, " _thankssss~_ " the ghost sensation of squirming threads thrust into his ears and up his nose, burrowing into his skull to curl around his fucking brain.

Sanji looks into the face of the god and the dream falls away. All that's left is the reality of an enormous orchid flower looming above him, its white and gold petals glowing in the sunlight spilling down from above, its writhing mass of vines wrapping Sanji in a living cocoon, cupping his face, stroking his cheek.

"Did you think I, who so obviously loves my children, would ignore your heartfelt plea?" Its words whisper through the tendrils thrust in Sanji's skull to spill directly into his mind. " _Never._ Because I, too, have known hunger. I, too, have known loneliness."

The orchid blossom sways closer with the poisonous grace of a viper. Its enormous leaves rise to cradle him gently. "I am a compassionate god, and a generous one. To you I will grant a miracle: a fruit you can devour to your heart's content, a meal to last you a lifetime." The flower dips down and down, so close it is mere inches away from his face and his vision is filled with the living gold at the centre of its blossom.

"Never again will your heart starve," it whispers. Its petals slowly embrace him, wrapping themselves around his cocoon in a parody of a parent tucking in a child.

"So be a good sprout, you pissy little fuckhead, and show your gratitude by blessing this old weed with many grandchildren."

Sanji's world is smothered in a sheet of white and gold.

And then Usopp pulls the blanket back and peers into Sanji's face. "Oy, Sanji, are you awake yet? 'cuz we really need you to get up and feed Luffy before he uses haki to chew through the fridge door."

Sanji blinks so rapidly that the sight of that long nose flickers, his brain frantically trying to catch up with this sudden shift to the ordinary. He stirs, hauls himself slowly into a sitting position. His head aches. His mouth is dry. But it's no worse than a mild hangover.

Usopp is still prattling on. "-to know that all our stores were topped up for free! Nami's watching over them right now to make sure that nothing goes missing before you can do an inventory but I don't know how long that'll last with how Luffy's going. He managed to squeeze himself into-"

It's not just the sight of the men's bunk room and Usopp's unending flow of chatter. It's the groan of the Sunny's hull as she cuts through the ocean, the creak of the box-hammocks' ropes, the slightly stale scent of the nearby laundry pile. The feel of the rough linen blankets and the subtle rocking of the world around him. The scent of the sea.

He is here and this is real.

He interrupts Usopp with a curt, "How long was I out?" as he takes stock of himself. He's wearing nothing but one of his old button downs so someone must have tossed the remainders of his acolyte disguise. There's no marks on him anyplace, no signs of binding vines, and apart from the headache and the dry mouth he feels fine.

Usopp sits down on the hammock next to Sanji's. Shrugs. "A night, maybe? You and Zoro were brought back yesterday evening so it's tomorrow morning. Guess it feels kinda weird to be missing a day, huh?"

What it feels like is the punchline to a terrible joke. Sanji rakes his fingers through his matted hair. Finally manages to swing his legs over the edge of his hammock and stumbles, barefooted and bare assed, to his locker to try and find his spare lighter and a packet of cigarettes.

". . . so, uh, Sanji?"

Sanji grunts vague affirmative around the butt of a smoke. The little snikt of the lighter's flint, the smell of burning paper and tobacco - ahhhh. He can feel his shoulders easing out of their defencive hunch, and the first breath is warm bliss, soothing away the sharp edge of the headache.

Over on the bunk, Usopp is now carefully studying the wooden planks of the walls. "Um. I wanted to- to say." He licks his lips. Fiddles with the blankets of the hammock he's sitting on, then with the pillow, then twines his fingers together. Blurts, " _Thanks-for-taking-me-seriously._ " Then he carries on more normally before Sanji can wave it away, "Zoro said you did a good job looking out for him at the Temple or whatever."

Sanji's gaze snaps onto Usopp. "Marimo said that? Wait, Marimo's already awake?" Fucker! What the hell is he doing getting up before Sanji after something like that? Is his ass made of the same rock as his head?

Usopp nods. "Chopper had us wake him up for an exam. He was worried that things might have gotten a little rough, especially since they brought Zoro back unconscious and wrapped in that weird flower cocoon." He gets a wistful look on his face, oblivious to Sanji's growing dismay at his words. "They had folded him up in this huge white orchid blossom. It was amazing! I haven't seen such a beautiful flower since my time in the Boin Archipelago. I wish I'd seen the plant it came from."

"Not if you still want to save yourself for Kaya, you don't," mutters Sanji. He rolls the butt of his cigarettes around with his tongue, writing curses with the smoke. The though of Zoro being wrapped up in one of those flowers -swallowed in it- has fear skittering across his skin on icy spider legs.

 _But if Chopper checked things out . . ._ His brow furrows as he tries to sort through the mess of information. Absently, he scratches at his jaw. Grimaces to find stubble and the sticky remains of sweat and-

His face is suddenly scorching with blush. He whips around to face the lockers before Usopp can notice, horrified that apparently he'd been changed and then dumped in bed still covered in pollen and dried come. Who the hell thought that was a good idea?! Did they just not realize?

Did the girls see him like this?

He grips the locker frame to steady himself. Swallows a few times and finally manages to push words out past the lump of mortification in his throat. "I'm . . . going to have a quick wash and shave before I start breakfast." It's going to be late! Shiiiiit, what kind of failure of a man is he to keep his damsels waiting? "Give my sincerest apologies to Nami-swan and Robin-chwan for the delay, and tell that rubber brat that if he sneaks any food before I get there he'll be eating nothing but stale crackers for the next three days."

"Take your time. The only one who's hungry after all that feasting is Luffy and, uh, you _really_ need a good soak. No offence, Sanji, but you smell like a rotten mango soaked in rum. What did you do on that island?"

Zoro, Sanji doesn't say, preferring to let awkward silence chase Usopp from the bunk room.

~

One look in the bathroom mirror has Sanji swearing to burn his bed sheets and the button-up he's wearing. With sticky yellow patches on his face and stringing through his hair, he looks like he was sneezed on by a flower.

He shivers. The memory of tendrils delicately corkscrewing into his ear looms suddenly large, and he can't get clean fast enough. He doesn't even bother undoing his shirt, just rips it open and sends buttons scattering, skipping across the bathroom tile, the ruins of the shirt thrown after them. Then he grabs a bath stool and sits down to scrub himself pink and raw, trying to wash away the gunk and the horrible memory of vines under his skin.

He has _got_ to talk to Chopper.

A half hour later his pruney fingers are the only trace of vegetable about his animal self. His shirt and his sheets have been tossed down the trash shoot to be burnt, his hands re-washed with fastidious care. The Sunny seems to still be caught in Ambrwazee's sweltering climate, so he opts for a light polo shirt instead of his usual jacket and tie, but he is not going about without pants. Really, he should have known better than to put on that sarong. Nothing good comes of men wearing skirts-

But the memory of a long fall of tangerine fabric hanging low from slender hips makes a lie of that. Subtle curves of muscle, elegant lines of bone and tendon, the tender dip of navel - all of it put on display by cloth that only paid lip service to modesty. The way it had clung to Zoro's ass had been positively sinful, and Sanji has to pause in the hall to stuff a fresh cigarette between his lips, telling himself the ache in his mouth is just nicotine cravings and not the hunger for another taste of scarred skin and musk.

After three years of practise (three years of starvation) the lie come easy.

It's a bit harder to keep himself from marching back into the men's bunk room and grabbing all of Zoro's pants to toss them overboard, but he's had that urge every time he's seen Zoro in anything but his horrible baggy clothing and so it, too, passes.

But the words of that fucking weed linger, fingerprints left in his brain that no amount of scrubbing has washed away.

_A fruit you can devour to your heart's content._

Tch. If only. The taste he'd gotten had been brief but unforgettable, with even the desperate haze of lust from the pollen unable to cloud it.

Just as sharp is memory of how deliciously responsive Zoro was, muscles clenching and body surging with every swipe of Sanji's tongue. A man could spend his whole life ( _a meal to last you a lifetime_ ) messing around with that body, learning every twitch and flex, never tiering of watching that strong back bow to base desire.

Could . . . but won't. The warm intimacy of the island night might have dazzled Sanji with golden dreams, but the cold light of this morning after reveals them for the cheap tinsel they are. Tenderness and vulnerability from that human cactus? Kneeling at Sanji's feet in reverence? Ha! Zoro's unappreciative of Sanji's magnificent skills in both the kitchen and on the battlefield, so why pretend the bedroom would be any different? No, it will take more than a one night stand ( _I will grant you a miracle_ ) to get that rock to crack, and Zoro'll fight it every step of the way, pissing and moaning and sour faced, grinding the salt of rejection into every wound his sharp tongue cuts across Sanji's heart. Zoro's a great fuck, sure, but he's not worth that bullshit.

So why should Sanji lower himself to sniffing after that boorish hunk of moss? Especially when there's darling Nami-san and glorious Robin-chan on board!

Particularly Nami-san. Trapped on that island of blossoms, she would have finally flowered into a woman, her petals opened by sensual pleasures to bare her tender heart. Robin-chan would have been there, of course, to coax her through the first shivering, shuddering revelation. But the loving of a woman and that of a man are two very different flavours, and Nami-san deserves to taste them both. Who better than a master chef to guide her in savouring those subtle distinctions?

Hope flutters in his heart and lust coils in his gut, sending him waltzing down the hall the final few steps to the galley door. He kicks it open and twirls inside, the long ribbon of his cigarette smoke trailing after him in loose heart shaped loops.

"Nami-swa~~n," he carols. "Your love-cook has arrived!"

Her sweet voice is rough and breathless when she answers him, "Sanji-kun?! Oh, th-thank goodness! I was getting _desperate_ waiting for you."

"N-n-nami-swan? You're desperate for me?" His head whips too and fro as he searches for her and finding nothing but empty kitchen and galley.

"Of course! You're the _only one_ who- who can- help me."

Sanji's heart lurches in his chest at the words. Surges into triple time when she continues,

"I'm in the pantry. Get in here, quick."

Get in the pantry. The dark, quiet, _private_ pantry. With Nami-san, who's desperate and breathless and needs him, _only_ him!

He is only vaguely aware that he has burst into flame because the blaze roaring about him and licking across the kitchen ceiling is but a faint spark compared the the roiling volcano of passion erupting in his soul. The magma of lust boils and roils and spills out, carving hot trails down his spine, past his belly and into his dick. He sways across the floor, stride made a little awkward by the tenting at the front of his pants, and his hands tremble as he reaches for the pantry door.

"Sanji-kun, hurry! _Please!_ "

The latch lifts. The hinges creak. Slowly he opens the door, the kitchen light spilling in a bright gold rectangle across the pantry floor to reveal Nami-san. . .

She's flushed and dishevelled, her beautiful hair tumbled about her face and sticking to sweaty skin, her mouth glistening-pink open and her magnificent breasts heaving under the thin white fabric of her blouse as she pants for breath.

Nami-san . . .

She's draped belly down over an enormous crate, her head dipping, her ass tipped upward, her hands gripping the wood with desperate strength. And when she sees him in the door her smile lights the dark room.

"Sanji-kun! Finally!"

"Nami-san . . !" he chokes. He takes his first, hesitant step inside, and he's sweating his hands are shaking oh shit can she see his boner he's in silhouette so it should be fine but its best not to rush things even if-

"I'll leave him to you, then," she says. "I have to go make sure we're still on course." And before he can react she's jumped up from the crate and scuttled past him and out into the kitchen.

The crate shudders.

He hears the kitchen door close. Nami-san, skillful beauty that she is, has made a perfect escape.

The crate jumps. Jumps again. The wood gives an alarming creak.

Then, "Mea~~~~t," groans a voice. "Mea~~~~t."

Sanji sighs and takes a moment to simply stand and smoke, watching the grey curls rise to the ceiling and coil about the lamp, adding yet another heartbreak to his long, long list. Darling Nami-san has once again succeeded in swindling him, her skillful bait and switch leaving him with their dumbass Captain instead.

Nami-san doesn't have to play such tricks to get him to do as she wants. But how can he deny her the pleasure of it when she so obviously enjoys toying with him?

"I'm your willing plaything, Nami-swan~" he croons.

Then he gives the box a hard kick, splintering the wood and sending its contents splattering across the back wall of the pantry.

Luffy bounces back to land at Sanji's feet in a tangle of limbs. Literally - someone has tied the rubber bastard's arms and legs in knots.

He looks up at Sanji from under the brim of his hat, his eyes wobbly and sad, his mouth slack and drooling. "Mea~~~~~t," he whimpers.

"How the hell can you be so hungry? Didn't you spend all yesterday feasting?"

"But that was _yesterday_ ," Luffy whines. "Now it's _today_. And I haven't had anything for a whole night!"

"Yeah, yeah, I understand. I'll make breakfast."

Luffy grins at him with that sunburst smile. " _YES!_ With meat, right? The islanders gave us lots of extra food as a thank you to Zoro, so we gotta eat it before it goes bad!" He tilts his head suddenly. Frowns. "Sanji?"

Shit. Got to keep his expression under control. "Ah, nothing. I'm just . . . amazed that there's people out there who consider the Marimo worth a reward."

Luffy snickers. "There's lots of people who do. His bounty's huge. It's even bigger than yours," he adds with cheerful lack of consideration.

Sanji very graciously refrains from punting Luffy out the door. He settles for, "Remind me again and you're having nothing but hardtack for breakfast," and storming out of the pantry, steps like thunder on the wooden floor as he leaves his captain to de-tangle himself.

He can dimly hear Luffy's repentant groveling over the sound of Sanji's grinding teeth, but it barely blunts the edge of his seething resentment. He is now all too _intimately_ aware that _everything_ about Zoro is bigger than Sanji's, and he's in no mood to be reminded of it because what hungry man likes to be reminded of forbidden fruit? Dammit, he just wants to forget yesterday and cook breakfast because there is no way- there's _no way_ -

Grimly, he turns to the refrigerator, to the cupboards, to what he glimpsed in the pantry and what's been left piled on the counter.

Ham (two hocks) and pineapples (three) and bacon (thick sliced) and bananas (five bunches) and eggs (four dozen) and melons (two water, two honeydew, one strange pink thing) and litchi (a bushel) and bread (sourdough and pumpernickel) coconuts (a dozen) and mango (fourteen)-

He fills his mind with the long list, a stream of picture-words that block out any other images, the clamour of recipes blotting out any memory of that plant's lies (promises.)

He piles plans for breakfast over top the memories like dishes placed to hide wine stains on a tablecloth in hopes that they'll fade before anyone notices. By the time he's putting the finishing touches on the entrees he's even managed to convince himself it'll work. He lays the grilled pineapple and ham kebabs on a serving dish, the chocolate-glazed bananas on another, and is just beginning to fry the crepes when he hears the first of the crew arrive.

Then he turns around and is forcibly reminded that wine stains never do fade in time.

And neither will Sanji's memories.

Because the first one in is Zoro. Zoro, who steps into the galley with the same bored look and the same heavy steps and the same ugly clothing as if nothing happened yesterday. He's not even limping despite the reaming he took and Sanji tries very hard not to think about what kind of muscle tone Zoro's got to have to endure that and it's not working because that green coat, that hideous green coat Zoro always wears is open like it always is and Sanji and every other fucking person on board can see the scratches and the bite marks and, front and centre, the hickey Sanji has left between the sweeping curves of Zoro's collarbones, nestled in the hollow of his throat.

A single drop of wine-red on bronze-brown skin.

Everything comes rushing back. From the curve and weight of Zoro's ballsack in Sanji's palm, the velvet of its delicate skin hot like fresh bread, to the way the sap from the orchid had drizzled down Zoro's jaw and throat, mixing with his sweat for Sanji to lap, sweet-salty like the best kind of candy.

The memory of that taste has Sanji swallowing convulsively, blush scalding his cheeks and his dick twitching in his pants, but when his gaze rises to Zoro's face he's met with nothing.

Not a frown, not a blush, not a twitch of the eyelid. Zoro looks at him with the same flat and level stare he's given Sanji every other damn day.

Like Sanji hasn't seen him naked and writhing and begging, hasn't had his fingers shoved in Zoro's ass, hasn't swallowed Zoro's jizz. Like this is just another morning and as for yesterday? Nothing happened.

Nothing. Happened.

And nothing has changed.

Sanji knew it would be like this. He knew it, has been sure of it from the moment he crawled out of bed, but even so something small and tender inside him crumples. That tiny little seedling of hope that dared to grow: maybe this time he'd spark a flame in another's heart. Maybe this time his passion would matter.

No. Not this time either.

( _I will grant you a miracle._ )

Not a god. Just a plant grown old and ripe with lies. The knowledge is bitter on Sanji's tongue. He tries to swallow it down but it sticks in his throat, and worse still, he can feel the petty resentment and sullen rage boiling in his gut and rising in his throat and maybe he shouldn't feel this way about someone who's trying to cope with flower-sex but for _fuck's sake_ , is it too much to ask that for once in his life Zoro acknowledge anything Sanji's done? To maybe change, just a little for the bet-

"Robin says to tell you she wants that special coffee you made," says Zoro.

"She _did?!_ "

Sanji's heart leaps in his chest. He's so excited he has to pause and lean against the counter because this! This is a huge step! For the first time since she's joined the crew Robin-chan finally feels safe enough to ask for something! To trust them with her desires!

"And it's for something special I made for her," he croons, hugging himself. "Robin-chwan! I'm so happy! Be more selfish, please, so your loving slave can spoil you~"

Ah, yes! Like a wild bird brought to hand by seed, Robin-chan is finally drawing closer to him thanks to the lure of coffee and cakes. She has taken the risk, and he will be sure to reward her sweetly, letting buttercream and vanilla soothe her fears of rejection, and sugar cookies dipped in dark chocolate pave the way to intimacy. Step by step she will come to trust him with her needs, first for special coffee, then for a soothing word and kind shoulder, and finally, for gentle hands to ease the loneliness from her body . . .

Zoro's bored voice breaks into Sanji's fantasies. "You're burning the pancake."

"Crepe," he corrects automatically. Then, "Shit. Shit!" as he yanks the pan from the stove and peers at the blackened sheet of batter. "Dammit, you walking piece of parsley, you ruin everything just by being around it! Get the hell out of my kitchen before you turn the milk sour."

"Yeah, yeah."

"And tell Robin-chan I'll be delighted to make her coffee."

"Whatever, shitty Cook."


	10. Chapter 10

Breakfast is well received, full of laughter and smudges of chocolate as Luffy does walrus impressions with the chocolate-coated bananas and Usopp tries to outdo him with banana moustaches and eyebrows. Then Franky joins in, luridly sucking on one of the long fruit and making milkshake jokes, and everyone dissolves into snickering and blushes.

"My eyes and ears! You've all turned pervert with Franky!" Usopp moans, but can't stop his own smile from flashing bright and wide.

Brook pokes at him with a kebab. "Such a fragile heart! Be thankful we thought to lock you safely in a cellar once the party hit full swing. New heights of perversion were reached in that celebration." He sighs happily. "Panties-! Panties everywhere, coming down in a rain as ladies flung them off. Why, it was a sight to bring a blush even to _my_ cheeks- if I had any to blush with! Yohohohohoh!"

Luffy grins, "It was really fun! Kinda weird and exciting, and there was this one group that had this cherry syrup that was so~~~~ good, and they let me lick it off-"

" _NO DETAILS_ ," chorus Usopp and Nami-san, and Sanji would have joined in except that he is too busy kicking himself for not having noticed the most vital of details sooner.

He's been too distracted before by the delight of her heaving breasts pressed against fabric and the pleading note in her voice, but now, surrounded by their crewmates, he can finally see the difference. Luffy in his usual open vest and Franky bare-chested and Usopp in nothing but his overalls, typical every-day ware for all of them.

But Nami-san is wearing a _blouse_.

Not the wonderful bikini-tops she usually favours on the high seas, baring her creamy flesh to the caress of the wind and Sanji's loving gaze, but a billowy white creation that, combined with her favourite jeans, has her covered from wrists to ankles. She is as veiled as she'd been in Alabasta's desert, and the heat and sun of that place seem to return to scorch Sanji with blush and dazzle his eyes with mirages.

Illusions of Nami-san play out before him. She is naked and writhing, embraced by Robin-chan's grasping hands that sprout around them like palm-fronds. Is that it? Is that what she's trying to hide? The red handprints Robin-chan has left scattered on Nami-san's pale skin, like the red leaves of a maple on snow?

Or is it teethmarks? Half circles of bruises and broken skin embroidered over shoulders and breasts, circling nipples and stamped neatly down the line of Nami-san's spine by the hundred mouths of Robin-chan's passion?

Or dare he even imagine . . . rope marks? Exotic vines put to good use, the perfume of their blossoms mingling with Nami-san's musk as Robin-chan mischievously uses them to gild Nami-san's intimate heat with golden pollen.

He doesn't know, can't see, can't tell, and a glance at Robin-chan shows nothing. Because Nami-san was too overwhelmed to touch? Or because Robin-chan didn't let her? It takes all his willpower not to fall to his knees right there in the galley and crawl to them, begging to know.

_What happened? What happened?! What ha-_

"-ppened in that temple, bro?" Franky's big, blocky elbow rams into Zoro's side, a blow that would crack ribs on anyone else but fails to even nudge the swordsman. "You never said."

"Yeah," Zoro agrees.

There's a slightly awkward pause, Franky and Brook leaning in expectantly, Robin-chan looking up from her coffee and morning paper, Chopper turning a wide-eyed gaze on him, and Usopp peeking from between his fingers.

Zoro, having been endowed with rocks instead of brains, makes good use of his natural talents to project the kind of stony silence usually encountered with mountains, and keeps his eyes on his plate and his mouth filled with food.

There's a palpable scuffle between everyone's curiosity and their good sense. Luffy and Nami-san seem to be the only ones holding out for discretion, though with Luffy it's probably because nothing Zoro could say would ever measure up to how interesting the breakfast ham is.

Shitty pervert that he is, Franky's the one to give in and try again. "Soooooo~ you gonna tell us?"

"Sure. Later."

Franky's hair spurts upward in a turquoise fountain that hits the galley ceiling, the only movement in the room as Sanji freezes. Usopp, Brook, Chopper, Nami-san - they all go statue-still, and Robin-chan's coffee cup pauses, her third hand stopping in mid-action so she can stare at Zoro. Even Luffy stops guzzling the orange juice long enough to cock his head at the unusual concession.

A lifetime's worth of survival instincts built up from tinkering with explosive weaponry kick in. Franky leans back, licks his lips. Shifts in his chair. "R-really?"

"Yeah," says Zoro. "Less nagging in the long run if I tell you."

Then he grins at Franky. It's the wide, fanged smile of a tiger with prey in sight, and his next words are a low, pleased purr: "I'll just kill you after to keep you quiet."

"Woah, now, wait a minute-!"

Distinctive _shhi~nk!_ of Zoro popping one of his blades out that first glistening inch, the taste of blood and steel in the air as Zoro's murderous aura fills the room. "You're nakama, so I'll make it quick."

"Or!" Usopp raises open hands, palms out to try and calm the beast at their table - or at least cushion any oncoming blow. "Or you could _not tell us!_ Because it's not our business and we really didn't want to know anyway! Right?"

Franky and Brook's agreement is a weak chorus, but it's given significantly more weight when Nami-san adds her own clear, "I agree."

Her eyes snap fire at the nosey bastards around her. "Some things," she says with slow and deliberate care, "are private."

Robin-chan chuckles into her coffee cup. "Indeed. One should be respectful of the deflowered's newly discovered tender side. They can be quite . . . " She reaches out with one of her true hands and thumbs at the corner of Nami-san's mouth. Pulls away and licks her finger. "Sensitive." Her dark eyes flash with mischief, her full lips curl into a naughty smile. "Jam," she says to Nami-san.

"Oooo~~~h," is all Nami-san can manage in return, slumping boneless back into her chair, her face going scarlet-bright as her lovely mane, her wide brown eyes seemingly unable to look away from Robin-chan's fingers, Robin-chan's mouth, Robin-chan's tongue flicking out pink against white skin.

And Sanji is very, very thankful for his heavy linen apron because his pants are doing nothing to hide his reaction to this bit of byplay. He staggers back, vague thoughts of hiding behind the kitchen counter darting through his brain and his hand clapped to his nose to keep from bleeding on the food because if he'd felt scorched with blush before now he is _seared_ , bright as a boiled lobster and lightheaded to boot, all his blood leaving his brain for far more important organs.

He's fumbling for a dishrag to help staunch the flow when he realizes Zoro is watching him.

It's an expression Sanji's seen many times before: narrow cyclops stare, sharp green brows pulled down in angry lines, lips drawn into something too flat to be called a sneer but too full of scorn to be anything else.

Zoro doesn't say anything but he doesn't need to. The words hang in the air between them, insults Zoro reuses like a cheap chip shop does fryer oil, and just as stale.

'Idiot.'

'Moron.'

'Pervert cook.'

Contempt for Sanji's love, for his passion, and suddenly Sanji wants very badly to remind Zoro that he's just as much a slave to his dick as anyone else. Take him into the pantry and bend him over a crate, see if he takes cock as well as he took that- that plant _thing._ Teach him that if he wants to look at Sanji it had better be from bended knees. Or better yet, from between Sanji's legs, mouth full of phallus instead of frowns.

Something of what he's thinking must have shown - Zoro's eyebrows twitch, his shoulders hunch. Uncertain? Scared of what Sanji could tell their crewmates about Zoro's own 'tender side'? Sanji savours the poisonously sweet idea of it. Not of telling the crew, but of Zoro nervous and fidgety and utterly in Sanji's power _and knowing it._

Sanji licks his lips. He tastes blood from his nosebleed and his cock jumps. Holds Zoro's gaze and imagines the blood is Zoro's, flowing from Zoro's bitten tongue, maybe, a punishment for talking back instead of doing as he's told.

The heat of the idea is nothing like his sunshine lusts for Nami-san or Robin-chan. This is black coal fire, smouldering and full of soot, dirty and dark and meant for backrooms, and he wants- he _wants-!_

He drops his gaze.

Because Zoro's made it clear that he doesn't want anyone to know, that his feelings haven't changed, that nothing has happened. And Sanji's a lot of things but he's not an _asshole_. He won't kiss and tell.

He looks back at Zoro just long enough to catch his gaze a second time, pulls the rag from his dripping nose and mouths, 'Secret.'

Zoro's lips twist down at the corners into a real frown. Just for a moment, a flicker in time, and then his face returns to blank stolidity, his attention on his food once more. Shithead probably doesn't trust Sanji to keep his mouth shut but whatever, that's his problem. Sanji's is keeping this lot of barbarians fed.

Resolutely, he turns back to his kitchen, to his cooking.

But he's still going to talk to Chopper after breakfast.

~

"Was this really necessary?" moans Sanji. _I should have known he'd turn this into an exam instead of a talk. Shi~~~t. Having blood drawn is one thing, but pissing into a cup . . ._

"Yes," Chopper says firmly, his hooves clicking against the glass of the sample container as he takes it from Sanji. He turns and sets it on the counter by the weird maze of glass vials and metal tubing he uses for analysis, continuing, "You were in an island-wide orgy with pirates from around the world. Do you know what kind of breeding ground for STIs that is? You could have picked up all kinds of things. Which reminds me, did you find any-"

" _No._ "

"Are you sure? Because-"

" _Yes._ "

"Okay. But if you start itching or finding bite marks you have to let me know quick because it won't go away without treatment and it's really contagious, and the last thing we want is for Luffy to get genital lice."

"Oh my _god,_ " Sanji whimpers, burying his face in his hands and trying desperately not to imagine it.

"You should be happy that what I learnt on Torino lets me do this right away instead of having to wait a few weeks," says Chopper, merciless in his practicality. "What if we hit another island before then and you're contagious?"

"But I can't be! The only person I had sex with was-" His jaws snap shut. The words, stopped short, pile up behind his teeth and choke him on his own spit, something he is incredibly grateful for because the next thing out of Chopper's mouth is-

"Virginity doesn't guarantee a clean bill of health!"

-and maybe if he's really lucky he'll die right here and now and the conversation will be over, and he won't have to see Chopper's big, innocent eyes shining at him while they discuss Sanji's sex life. The one he is suddenly sharing with Zoro, and how the hell is Sanji going to explain _that?_

"-all kinds of stuff just from kissing or sharing drinks-"

Chopper's apparently a lot more on the ball about sex than Sanji would have thought and he's discreet besides but this is still not something Sanji is ready to share with anyone, no matter how well intentioned, because Sanji has his own 'tender side' and it's been scrapped _raw_. Chopper's a nice kid but he's prying and too-smart and his questions are going to draw Sanji's blood in a whole new way.

"-hereditary diseases that could be passed-"

He'd lie about the whole thing except that Chopper is looking at him with those same trusting eyes, only worse because now they're backed by the authority of the ship's doctor.

How the fuck does Usopp manage to bullshit in the face of that? Sanji sure can't. And Chopper's not going to accept a stonewalling, which means Sanji is left groping desperately for a way to just change the goddamn subject until Chopper says-

"-know you think women are wonderful but even they can get sick and-"

-and Sanji realizes he's been so focused on Zoro that he completely forgot about every other virgin on the island he could have had sex with. The female ones. The ones Chopper obvious assumes Sanji was bedding.

"A seizure!" squeals Chopper. "You're having a seizure! Ahhh! Doctor! We need a doctor!"

Sanji mashes his head against the wall some more, blood running from his forehead and foam dripping from his lips. "Failure! Disgrace! How could I ever forget-!"

"Oh, wait, I'm the doctor."

~

The mellow kiss of nicotine and the warm caress of smoke in his lungs ease the sting of wounded pride and the iodine Chopper paints on Sanji's battered forehead.

"Hurting yourself like that-! You're as bad as Zoro," Chopper scolds.

"Don't compare me to that mossheaded moron." Sanji twirls his cigarette between his fingers, keeps his eyes on the smoke and does his best to act casual when he asks, "Oi. About that idiot. Usopp said you checked him out. Everything . . . okay?"

Chopper stops dabbing at Sanji's forehead. Very slowly he pulls back, frowning, and Sanji can feel the doctor's searching gaze on him, a heavy weight that seems to be trying to squeeze more information out.

But how much can Sanji say? Is it his place to tell Chopper about the thing that crawled inside of Zoro and wrung sweet submission from him? The way it fucked him and filled him and swore to-

( _I will grant you a miracle._ )

Sanji scrubs his hand across his face. Lets the words tumble out as best he can, in halting, broken phrases. "I know you can't give me details and anyway I don't want to know them, but. It's just." _That thing could have done anything._ "That was Zoro's first time and the dumbass isn't the type to say if anything went wrong and." _I have a bad feeling._

He sucks on his cigarette. Blows smoke out his nose in a long plume. Looks up when he feels the gentle touch of hoof on his shoulder.

"Zoro is the worst patient," says Chopper. His voice is warm and gentle, his eyes full of understanding. "So I'm always extra careful. I did a full physical checkup along with the tests."

Sanji manages the sketch of a grin. "He must have hated that."

Chopper groans. "It was awful. I had to sit on him in Strong Point for half of it! But everything checked out. There's nothing beyond what you'd expect."

The black vines of fear wither in the sunny light of Chopper's confidence, loosen their grip on Sanji's heart, fall away. "Well, you're the best doctor I know. If you say so then it must be true."

"Sh-shut up, you bastard! Don't think I want to hear that sort of thing from you!"

This time Sanji's grin is real. "No? And here I was gonna thank you for doing such a good job by making cotton candy. But if you don't deserve my thanks . . ."

"Oh! No fair, no fair! S-Sanji! Please-!"

Laughter carries Sanji out of the room and rattles in his chest the rest of the day, seasons his cooking and his chores. It's a good feeling, bright like new-minted beri, like the hot, gold-white sun above.

But it's tarnished that evening when Nami-san comes to the table with a frown.

"Nami-swan? Is the fish not to your liking? I can make something else." He'd thought the mousse, a delicate concoction of manta fins and mayonnaise and seasoned with fresh lemon would have been a refreshing change from the sweet meatyness of breakfast and the leftovers at lunch, but perhaps the heat has put her off anything creamy?

His brain flits through his ingredients, his hands already reach for knife and fruit, but Nami-san stops him with a wave and a smile that pins him in place, utterly captivated by the adorable flash of a dimple, the dip of thick eyelashes.

"The food is wonderful, Sanji-kun," she tells him.

 _Nami-san smiled at me! Nami-san likes my cooking!_ The delight of it pours out of him in sparkling tears of joy, in sweet and warbling song. "Nami-swa~~~n! To think that someone as unworthy as me could make something that pleases you! Ah, the joy of bringing pleasure to your lips. I swear to cook for you always, Nami-swan~!"

"NO, I HAVEN'T GOT IT," yells Usopp, inconsiderately drowning out Sanji's peon of praise.

"ME NEITHER," Franky bellows at Nami-san.

Rude shitheads. But before Sanji can really rip into them for their interruption, Robin-chan speaks up, and her words freeze him in the middle of his chastising kick to Usopp's face.

"Swordsman-san is forbidden from returning to the island. Perhaps the Eternal Post was taken to enforce this."

Sanji lowers his leg slowly. "It's gone?"

Nami-san is frowning again. "Yes. I didn't notice until I went to add some notations to my map of the island. They left me that, at least, but the Eternal Post is gone, and our own Log Post didn't register the magnetic field for Ambrwazee. We're actually following a new Eternal Post the islanders left us." She sets a tiny glass dial on the table.

Luffy's neck makes a long, fleshy arc as he stretches to sends his head closer and read the inscription. "Tnnzzffffff?" he asks, spewing half-chewed fish onto Nami-san's plate. Then his head rockets away, a spectacular lump decorating his skull where Nami-san has punched him.

"That's disgusting!"

"I'll get you a new plate, Nami-swan," says Sanji. He grabs the tainted one and sets it down in front of Luffy. "Finish that. And keep away from Nami-san's food from now on or you won't get dessert."

"Noooooo~" wails Luffy's head, three feet away where it's splattered against the galley wall.

Robin-chan, dignified as always, graciously ignores the byplay between her captain and her cook and ferries the Eternal Post down the table by way of a long line of helpful hands. "Tanizaff," she reads when it comes close enough. "The name seems somewhat familiar."

"It's a kind of pine tree," says Usopp.

"Pine trees! Does that mean it could be a winter island?" asks Chopper, perking up.

Usopp laughs. "Tired of being hot, huh? Me, too. Well, it's a boreal plant, so if it's not a winter island it should at least be an autumn one."

"A island of cool, fresh breezes for a fresh start," Brook carols. "Ah! That reminds me of a song: the autumn leaves are carried by the wind and come tumbling down, twirling, twirling~"

Soon Luffy, Usopp, Franky and Chopper have joined in, their voices a happy chorus of "twirling, twirling!"

Dinner moves into dessert moves into drinking and singing and picking up plates for washing, everyone humming along with Brook.

And yet. And yet.

There's a sour note in Sanji's heart. A tarnished beri.

A little weed of fear, its vines pruned but its roots deep.

He can't say why, but the theft of the Eternal Log Post has him worried. Though the others seem happy with Robin-chan's explanation that it's the islanders' way of enforcing the ban on a sacrifice returning, Sanji is left uneasy, off-balance.

It's ridiculous. Chopper said that he'd done a full exam and that everything checked out. Zoro certainly seems his usual self, lounging around on deck and making an eyesore of himself. The asshole is parading around shirtless again, apparently having learnt nothing on Ambrwazee. It drives Sanji crazy. Why? Why does Zoro insist on making a spectacle of himself? It's not like anyone cares the man's back is a rippling plane of muscle when his personality is so shit!

But when Tanizaff comes into view, the fear in Sanji's heart blossoms, frost petals fluttering in his soul and leaving him shivering in the cool autumn wind.

"Wha~~~t? This island _sucks_ ," groans Luffy.

It's a tiny island, about twice as wide as the Sunny, a flat, rocky jut of land with a few skinny pine trees and a scattering of bushes carved into lacy clouds by the ocean winds.

There are no signs of people. No houses, no dock, not even an old firepit.

No visible reason of any kind for the islanders of Ambrwazee to send them here.

So why did they?


	11. Chapter 11

They spend barely a day at Tanizaff. Thorough exploration turns up the only trace of humanity - a rough carving in one of the pine trees' trunks that reads '6 hrs.'

Robin-chan makes the guess that it's a reference to how long it takes the Log Post to set, and sure enough, six hours later Nami-san confirms that they're ready to make sail.

They take nothing and leave nothing. Certainly not Sanji's doubts. Those linger around him like his cigarette smoke, just as coiling-vague and clinging, impossible to shake no matter where he goes on the ship. A week goes by and still they linger, in his brain and in his shadow and at the corner of his eyes.

The weather doesn't help. It's turned to a persistent early autumn, with warm, bright sun and enough breeze to turn the air pleasantly crisp, pushing the Sunny along with a gentle hand. But the sky is too blue and too clear, an empty loft above that makes a mirror image with the calm sea, so eerily perfect it's hard to tell what is sky and what is water. The shadows are all at the wrong angles, skidding across the lawn of the deck and coiling into odd corners, pooling around the base of the foremast and lapping at Zoro's boots as he naps.

Zoro sleeps as he has so many time before, cross legged, cross armed, swords propped at his side. He's not at the mast, though. He's up against the wall of the men's quarters, crammed into the corner between the door and the railing, the sun beating down on him and the spray misting over the side to bead in shinning drops in his hair.

Sanji sneers, the heat of his glare refracted by the galley window to make spiteful rainbows on the walls around him. _Shithead's gonna grow roots at this rate,_ he thinks.

Shudders in sudden cold. The galley is warm from the heat of the kitchen's oven, slow-roasting beef for tonight, but there is frost in Sanji's veins, and fear stabbing its needles into his skull like the worst kind of brainfreeze.

 _Chopper said everything is fine,_ Sanji tells himself, resolutely turning away from the galley window. _You're not a doctor, you're a cook. Stop pretending you know better and get back to work before you leave the ladies wanting._

The thought of dear Nami-san and Robbin-chan suffering so much as a pang of hunger finally gets him moving. He's got crumble planned for today's snacks, something a bit heavier now they they've reached a cooler climate.

Butter melting is always strangely soothing. Rich scent he breaths in and savours, his mind finally full of nothing but cooking. He pulls the pot from the heat and mixes in oats and flour, brown sugar and salt. The crumbly dough goes into a cake pan, and then he turns to the fruit.

The blackberries are washed and drained quick as a thought. The cherries, needing to be pitted, take more time.

But Sanji's been pitting cherries for over a decade now, the movements so practised his thoughts are free to wander, and despite his best efforts he finds them straying back to Zoro.

_Bastard certainly isn't wasting any energy on worrying._

Zoro's returned to routine as seemingly easy as a sword slips into a scabbard. Eat - train - booze - nap, a rhythm as incessant as the tide.

And yet.

And yet.

This tide that Sanji knows so well has developed odd eddies. Like the naps. Zoro's always been known for sleeping anyplace and anytime, sprawled out on deck or under Nami-san's trees, on the couches in the aquarium bar or the long bench in the galley. Sometimes even in one of the box hammocks in the men's bunk room.

But now he's grown picky, choosing only the sunniest spots for his naps. And he doesn't sprawl anymore. He's always folded up and folded in on himself, wedged into odd corners.

_It could just be the sudden cold of the new climate. Even a rock like him has to feel the difference, right?_

The cherries provide no answer so Sanji sends them to their final fate with no regret, dumping them with their blackberry cousins in the cake pan, burying them in their shallow crumble grave, and consigning them to the hell of the second oven.

Wouldn't do to put them in with the roasting meat and muddle the flavours.

He sets the timer and drifts around the kitchen. Finally he gives up and gives in and starts making hot cider, spiced with cinnamon and cloves and lemon peel, and a generous dose of rum.

Because another oddity is that Zoro is drinking more.

Not by much. Just three to four glasses more over the day. Easy for anyone to miss him drinking a bit extra at breakfast, grabbing another glass of juice in the chaos of lunch. He drinks an extra cup of saké after dinner, but who's counting, right?

Sanji is counting. He is the cook. Noticing this shit is his job, a running tally he keeps for each and every one of his nakama so that if the unthinkable happens he will know down to the last mouthful how long their supplies will last. Before now Zoro has been as consistent with his eating and drinking as he has been with every other one of his habits. This change is subtle, so subtle. Could be nothing.

_Could just be him jerking off more now that he knows what his dick is for._

Night after night on watch with no one to see and no one to judge, the darkness wrapping shadow arms around him, the moon and the stars his only companions. In those cold, black hours of solitude, did Zoro return to the memories of heat and companionship? Did he feel his blood warm, his cock twitch from the ghost of Sanji's touch?

Ignorant of his own body, unpractised at sating his own lust, was he startled by the sudden rush of need? Gasp to find his dick filling, hardening, straining against his pants? Did he touch himself with strong hands grown hesitant, tracing the shape of himself through tented fabric?

It would make his breath hitch like it had back on Ambrwazee when Sanji pressed closed and breathed into the shell of Zoro's ear. It would make the muscles of Zoro's belly jump and clench, make his nipples harden and oh, that would surprise him. Sanji had barely touched him there so Zoro wouldn't know how sensitive they can be, even on a man. Bared to the cold night by Zoro's open coat, they'd grow hard and aching, and Zoro would rub them, flinch at the jolt of feeling, touch them again, gently, gently. Twist and tug. Groan.

How long would he spend thumbing slow circles around his nipples, his hands cupping the swell of his own tits, feeling the heat of his own skin and the heavy throb of his heartbeat? Until chance makes him brush his fingers against his scar and ruined nerves flare fire, strange pain-delight that drags his hands back down the length of his chest, past the ripples of his abs to the hot, hot cleft of his legs. He'd fight with haramaki and pants to get at himself. Thrust a hand in and hiss in satisfaction as his fingers curl around his length. Start up a rough, urgent rhythm of thrust and squeeze and stroke.

It wouldn't be enough. Not after he'd been shown the truth of his own nature. The ache inside, the emptiness clamouring to be filled as it had been once before. Zoro now knows what is he, what he was made for, what his body craves more than meat and drink, and his other hand would skate around to his back, push under cloth to grope clumsily at his own ass.

Rough, callused fingers slipping down until they find the hole to press inside. He'd been shy of taking Sanji's fingers. Made soft sounds and tried to flinch away until he'd been seduced, gentled, brought to surrender. Now, alone with himself, he'd revisit that moment and confess his desires to himself with trembling hands. A desperate pumping of first one finger, then two, thrusting in past tight muscle and feeling the heat inside, searching, searching for the hidden place that made him feel so good.

He wouldn't find it. Clumsy innocent would have to make due with thrusting and stretching and remembering Sanji, Sanji's touch, Sanji's skill. He'd whimper and snarl at his own inadequacy and come in sticky pearl strands all over his fist and the inside of his pants while wishing, _wishing-!_

 _Wishing I was there to teach him. To_ train _him_. The thought is as lazy warm and satisfying as the smoke Sanji sucks into his lungs. He tongues the butt of his cigarette and adjusts his pants. Shivers. Grabs a dishrag to dab blood from under his nose.

And then tosses it away into the sink, and with it, his passion.

 _Not worth the hassle,_ he reminds himself.

He stops the timer seven seconds before it rings, his internal clock more exact, his sense of smell more reliable for telling him when the food is ready.

But the timer was a gift from Nami-san. A kitchen essential, to her mind, along with the pots and pans and knives and bowls. So he uses it as insurance, and smiles at its soft ticking.

Nami-san is always careful of the details. Not surprising, considering the exacting nature of map-making, where an inch can translate to thousands of miles at sea. Mistakes quickly turn fatal with that kind of ratio. So it's not surprising Nami-san is a little high strung about the fumbles of her crewmates - she tolerates her own errors even less.

_Nami-san~! It's a privilege to be the one to reward your hard work!_

And of course, when there's a snack for Nami-san there's one for Robin-chan. Because Robin-chan works hard, too. Poneglyphs don't translate themselves, and the ancient language is rife with subtleties and references that demand an enormous amount of knowledge to grasp. So Robin-chan is always studying, learning, searching. Sometimes Sanji wonders if she's trying to fill the gap left by Ohara all by herself, a one-woman avatar of an entire island's knowledge.

_Robin-chan~! It's a joy to be your squire in this quest for truth!_

He pulls the crumble from the oven, then sets the kettle on. By the time the water's boiled for tea the crumble has cooled enough to be plated. He adds a few fresh cherries as garnish to each serving, puts everything on a tray, and swaggers out onto the deck.

Down the stairs and across the lawn deck he skips, then up, up the stairs around and past the foremast till he's on the second level.

He pauses.

Takes a deep breath.

And then, slowly, quietly, creeps up the final staircase just enough to let him peek up at the helm.

He immediately stuffs his fist in his mouth to keep any sound from leaking out.

_They're doing it again! They're doing it again! So cu~~~~~~te!_

The two women are snuggled together on the helm's bench, shoulder to shoulder with one of Robin-chan's arms curled around Nami-san's waist, the other holding an open book. From his vantage he can see the tilt of head as they talk, the third hand that sprouts to card through Nami-san's hair, long fingers twining in the coppery curls. The way legs press and shift together.

For a long moment he watches them. With the blue of the sea and the sky running together in azure infinity, Nami-san's brilliant hair a blaze against the velvet dark of Robin-chan's mane, they are as the sun and the moon.

 _Talk about heavenly bodies!_ He sighs, and the smoke from his cigarette makes sad little hearts that wisp away into nothing. This piece of paradise is not for him.

Nami-san, normally so bold and brash, is very shy about her new passion. Not surprising. Arlong's brutal treatment taught her to keep her vulnerabilities hidden even from her nakama. So Sanji is mindful of Robin-chan's advice, and is respectful of Nami-san's tender side. He keeps his delight to himself, and when he walks up the last few steps, his feet hit heavy on the planks in friendly warning clatter.

"Nami-swan~! Robin-chwan~! I've brought you both snacks and tea."

He makes no comment about seeing them together out here. Plays along that the few inches they've moved apart are enough to hide their intimacy. Instead, he keeps his conversation light and his compliments neutral.

"The autumn sun is so flattering for Nami-swan. With your pale skin and fiery hair, you look like a slender birch who's leaves have turned."

And,

"This cherry-berry crumble is not nearly as sweet as your smiles, elegant Robin-chwan."

They thank him, and he leaves them in a swirl of flattering song and laughter. It takes a wrench of effort, but he doesn't glance back, doesn't stop on the stairs again, doesn't linger where the wind will carry him their words. Instead he heads straight across the lawn deck and back toward his kitchen, and he's just going up the second set of stairs when he realizes there's still something on his serving tray.

It's a mug of hot cider.

He glares at it.

It shouldn't be on his tray. He doesn't even remember putting there. But since it _is_ there he's got no choice - he has to serve it. To do otherwise would be a waste.

He glares at Zoro.

The shitty green bastard is still napping in the corner by the railing. He's going to bitch about being woken up. But since Sanji has the fucking cider already made and poured and is out here anyway, he's got no choice - he has to serve it. To do otherwise would be a waste.

He stomps down the stairs. Smiles grimly at the thunder of his steps. Stomping across the lawn deck is a hell of a lot less satisfying, but he makes it up to himself by kicking Zoro awake.

Well, trying to, anyway. Fucker manages to get a sword up and block the blow. Why can't he be this responsive when he's needed for chores, is what Sanji wants to know.

Zoro's one good eye cracks open. "The fuck do you want, shit cook?"

Asshole isn't going to appreciate this like he should. Isn't going to even bother grunting thank you. But since he's obviously in need of more liquids and it's Sanji's duty as cook to provide them, Sanji's got no choice - he has to serve it. Serve Zo-

_Fuck. That. If anyone's going to do any serving it's him, in thanks for me busting my ass!_

"I'm taking time out of my busy schedule to bestowing this favour on you, Marimo, so show some gratitude for once." He thrusts the mug of cider at Zoro. "Feel free to grovel and kiss my shoes."

"Kiss my ass," Zoro snaps back. He stares suspiciously at the offered drink. "What's this for?"

"For drinking," says Sanji. "You're thirsty, right?"

Zoro stares at him for a long moment. ". . . yeah."

"So~~~~." Sanji thrusts the mug at him a second time.

Very slowly, very deliberately, Zoro sets his sword aside. His gaze never leaves Sanji's face, not when he reaches with both hands for the mug, not when the takes it and cradles its warmth close, not even for that first sip. It's only when the taste of the rum hits him that he blinks, looks down into his drink. "This is good!"

"Of course it's good. I made it."

Zoro just grunts and chugs down the cider, his Adam's apple bobbing with each greedy swallow. Impossible not to remember him swallowing down the orchid god's vines, the orchid god's nectar, the feel of his muscles moving as Sanji pressed his lips to Zoro's skin.

He can't stop himself. He crouches down and wraps his fingers around Zoro's throat to feel it -to feel him- again.

The surge and flow of muscle from the last swallow. The rapid tattoo of Zoro's pulse so strange when Zoro himself has gone stone still. The oven-heat of his skin as it flushes from bronze to cherry under Sanji's touch. In just one night this has all become so damn familiar, so damn _haunting_. Little details that have burrowed roots into Sanji's brain and are slowly cracking it apart. He leans in and breaths deep because he could swear he still smells the tropical sweetness lingering on Zoro's skin.

"D-don't-" says Zoro, his voice low, broken.

"Shut up. I just need to check-" His hand skates down to the dip at the base of Zoro's throat and he can't resist pressing it. Sucks his cigarette down to the smouldering filter when Zoro shudders.

He tosses the cigarette butt over the side without looking, enraptured by the sight of his fingers slipping down between heaving pecs to _the_ scar. His fingers trace the ugly length of it, feel the ropey texture left by clumsy stitching, and he follows it down and down to-

"Why do you always have to wear this ugly thing?" He shoves the haramaki down to bunch around Zoro's hips, baring washboard abs so he can finally lay his hand on Zoro's belly. Warm, soft skin, the gentle dip of Zoro's navel, and when Sanji rubs his palm down toward Zoro's groin there is no alien touch from within to mirror the motion. Just muscles clenching in utterly human fashion, the shift and tenting of Zoro's pants as normal a reflex as anything Sanji could hope for.

Paranoia appeased, Sanji grunts, "Good."

"Good?" hisses Zoro. " _Good?!_ You shitty pervert! Arrogant fuckhead! You said- you said- secret- and now right on deck-" his speech degenerates into wordless snarling and gnashing teeth, and Sanji has just enough time to look up before the empty mug smashes into his face and sends him reeling back.

Zoro's clambering to his feet, clutching his coat closed and tugging up his haramaki. "Don't think you can put your hands on me just because no-one's around! Liar! Animal! Randy _goat!_ "

"Goat?" splutters Sanji. " _Goat?!_ Listen, you ungrateful shithead, I was making sure you're healthy!"

Zoro's face is red as a boiled lobster, cooked in the heat of his rage. "Go find Nami if you're so desperate to play doctor! Me, you keep your hands off of!" He stomps away, stuffing his katana into his sash as he goes, hands clumsy and shaking, swearwords trailing after him like poisonous smoke.

Sanji does some swearing of his own as he gingerly touches his face. _The hell is his problem? You'd think he was still a virgin with all that prissy pearl-clutching. Fuck, how dare he batter this handsome face! He'd better not have broken my nose!_

He gets to his feet. Picks up the mug. Swears some more at the blood dripping onto the lawn from his newly-split lip. _Barbarian didn't even say thanks for the cider. See if I spoil him ever again._

He thrusts a fresh cigarette between his bloody lips and slinks back into the kitchen to nurse his wounded face and pride.

~

He'd have dearly loved to snub Zoro at supper but he's not given the chance. The bastard doesn't show his ugly green face, preferring to sulk by himself than confront Sanji's righteous indignation.

That's fine. Mannerless oafs have no place at Sanji's table. Zoro can get his food left for him at the kitchen door like all the other strays, and suffer the indignity of Sanji leaving him nothing but bottles of juice to drink.

It's more irritating the next morning when Zoro doesn't show for breakfast, or lunch, or that night's dinner. Sanji sends Usopp to him with a care package, gets helpless shrugs from Usopp as his only return message. Apparently Zoro wouldn't even look him in the face.

It's downright worrying the day after when Zoro still doesn't shown up for breakfast.

_Dammit, why is he making such a big deal about this? This isn't like him!_

Sanji freezes in the middle of pouring Brook some milk, oblivious to it slopping over the edge of the cup and onto Brook's face.

_This isn't like him._

_This_ isn't _like him!_

_Shit!_

"Milk bath, milk bath~ Good for the bones and good for the skin," sings Brook as the milk cascades down his skull. "Ah, but I have no-"

"Shut up, Brook!" Sanji crams the milk bottle into those open jaws, thrusts the cup into bony fingers. "Franky, you had night watch with Zoro, right? Did he say anything? Do anything weird?"

Franky frowns at him. "Bro, I didn't even _see_ Zoro last night. I figured he-"

Sanji doesn't stay to hear the rest, sprinting out of the galley and onto deck. He bellows, "Zoro?!"

Luffy's in the galley door. "Sanji? What's wrong?"

"I don't know! I don't- I thought he was just being a pissy bitch, I didn't-" He turns and looks up at the crow's nest. If Zoro's gone anyplace to hide . . .

Sanji sprints through the air because fuck ladders at a time like this. He scrambles at the hatch to the crow's nest and finds it locked. He doesn't even bother knocking, just kicks the thing open and crawls inside and then falls to his knees, the breath gone out of him because Zoro is there, curled in on himself and wedged against the benches and blood on his face and his hands and pooling around his head. Blood, and blood, and blood.

And scattered in that red puddle - orchid blossoms.

_"CHOPPER!"_


	12. Chapter 12

Any cook worth his salt knows the power of scent. To entice and to seduce, to repel and to revolt, to reach into a person's brain and pluck out memories, no matter how long forgotten.

For Sanji, that means the blend of blood and antiseptic forcibly reminds him of Zoro.

Zoro bleeding, Zoro broken, Zoro laid out in the infirmary so that Chopper can patch him back together again and again with silk thread and prayers, with linen bandages and hope. It's happened so many times Sanji's lost count.

This is the first time he's been the reason for it, though.

Because while their fights are both prolific and vitriolic, they have never, ever crossed the invisible boundary from sparring into actual violence. Yell insults? Sure. Kick a bastard in the face for putting his elbows on the table? Fine. But you do not cause _genuine harm_ to your nakama.

Now, with Zoro lain out on the infirmary cot, IVs twisting into his arms and fucking flowers sprouting out of his eye socket, Sanji can't call the result of his choice to keep his mouth shut anything but 'genuine harm.'

"Can't we just yank it out?" asks Luffy, his hand stretching toward Zoro's face.

" _NO!_ " The infirmary, already crowded with the entire crew clustered around Zoro's bedside, becomes impossible to move in as Chopper's Heavy Point form swells protectively between Zoro and Luffy. "You'll kill him!"

Luffy's eyes widen. "Just by picking a flower? Zoro's not that weak."

"It has nothing to do with strength or weakness," says Chopper grimly. He darts a glance at Robin-chan, who nods and lays her hand on Luffy. Their captain won't be getting grabby again with her on watch.

Only then does Chopper shrink back down to Brain Point. He climbs onto the bed and gently turns Zoro's head toward them, pushing aside the cluster of brilliant orange orchid flowers that spill out of Zoro's eye socket. "Here, look. You can see that some of the stems are red instead of green. That's because the plant has connected itself to Zoro's circulatory system, probably through the retinal artery left over from his ruined eye. If you yank out the flower now you'll make him bleed to death."

"He-" Sanji has to pause to clear his throat. "He had blood on his hands."

Usopp shivers and wraps his arms about himself. "Do you think he'd been trying to pull them out by himself?"

"It would be like him," Franky says. "Zoro-bro's pretty hardcore."

"He's pretty _stupid_ is what he is," snaps Nami-san. "That idiot! He's always doing reckless things like this-!" Her delicate hands clench and shake. "He never tells us anything! What if Sanji-kun hadn't found him? Zoro'd have bled to death while we all had supper!"

"Indeed. How fortunate that Cook-san was paying such close attention," Robin-chan says. Her gaze flits from Zoro to Sanji and he looks away, can't stand that her beautiful eyes should see something as petty and worthless as himself.

"It's nothing deserving Robin-chan's praise." It really isn't. Not when there's Zoro's blood on his hands. He, who'd promised Usopp that he would look out for Zoro in this whole mess. He, who should know better than anyone on this ship that sex can get under your skin and fester, poison you with emotions you can't seem to purge, fill you with the bile of fear and make you curl inward in a frantic attempt to hide the gaps discovered in your heart.

The worry that Usopp woke in Sanji days ago echos through his mind: If something did go wrong, would they ever even know?

The answer had been obvious and yet he still managed to miss it happening right before his eyes. Zoro pretending nothing had happened. Zoro hiding himself away. Two days - Zoro had spent _two days_ avoiding Sanji, avoiding _conflict_. Zoro, who'd fight over what soap they should buy at market. And Sanji, sulking and sullen over Zoro's rejection, had been blind to the warning.

_I've let you down._

A thought filled with a stew of regrets and guilt. Worse still is the fact that he isn't even sure who he's failed. Usopp, who he'd made a promise to? Robin-chan and Nami-san, who he'd reassured? Chopper, who he'd left ignorant, or Luffy, their captain, who trusted him enough to make him part of this crew?

Zoro, who's vulnerability Sanji had savoured like fine wine?

_Shit. Some protective lover I am._ He scrubs his hand over his face. Sighs. _Or . . . whatever you call this thing with Zoro._

But as incompetent a paramour he might be, there are still things only he can do, and he's not about to let his feelings fuck thing up more than they already have. "Oi, Chopper. You need the usual for this dumbass?"

"Please."

Ice chips and broth and fruit sliced and peeled. Sanji's done it as often as Chopper's set stitches, a routine that, if not comforting, is at least comfortable. Familiar.

He nudges Franky out of the way and ducks out the door into the galley.

~

Broth is something every good cook has on hand. In Sanji's case he has three kinds fresh -chicken, bonito, and vegetable- and beef in the freezer.

Zoro's always preferred bonito, liking fish better than red meat, and usually Sanji indulges him on the principle that it's better for everyone if Zoro's given as little excuse to be a difficult patient as possible.

This time, however, Sanji is in no mood to cater to a fussy pallet. Zoro's lost enough blood to make Chopper seriously worried and he's done it through his own stupidity. Hindsight's clear gaze has picked out the significance of Usopp's report that Zoro hadn't looked at him when he'd delivered Sanji's care package - Zoro was probably already in bloom at the time and was hiding it. He'd likely spent that entire night trying to treat himself, ignoring blood loss and common sense as he weeded his own face.

Granted, it's just another serving of Zoro's usual self-destructive bullshit. But Sanji is finding himself unable to swallow it this time, the guilt already sticking in his throat clogging the way.

He sets the frozen broth in a double boiler to thaw. Then he reaches for his cleaver and one of the green coconuts left from Ambrawzee. Coconut water is good for rehydration and replacing lost electrolytes and minerals in the body, and it's easy on the stomach. He'll see if it freezes well - if it does, he'll make it into ice chips for Zoro to replace the plain water ones they've been using until now.

His cleaver flashes in the sunlight pouring into the kitchen from the portholes. The coconut's green flesh is peeled away to reveal the hard seed within. A few taps of his clever on a seam and the shell cracks, leaving him access to the tender meat and sweet juice within.

_If only that shithead was as easy to crack._

Sanji frowns. There's something in that thought. It lingers in his mind like a flavour half-remembered, teasing him not with ideas, but with the _possibility_ of ideas.

He's still scowling blankly at the coconut when the infirmary door opens, closes softly. He glances up, expecting to see Nami-san on her way to the helm to check their heading, maybe, or perhaps Usopp slinking off to go brood in his workshop. But instead he sees Brook, the skeleton's slender figure unfolding to full height after having ducked through the door.

"Oh dear. Have the coconuts gone bad, Sanji-san?" Brook asks. He glides over to the bar that separates the kitchen and the galley, claims a seat on one of the stools, folds his long hands together on the counter top.

"No. Just lousy association," says Sanji.

"That's one of the gifts from Ambrwazee, yes? It seems that island really did prove too good to be true. And yet I can't bring myself to regret it entirely." He sighs happily. "A rain of panties. So many colours! So many styles! Stripes, polka-dots! Lace, ribbons! After such a sight I can die happily. Ah, but! I'm already dead," he chortles.

Then, suddenly, he pins Sanji with a glance forged of black shadow and empty eye sockets, and the next words he speaks are serious. Intense. "I am dead. But Zoro-san is not."

Sanji's mouth moves uselessly, as empty as his brain of any retort.

Brook hums, bobs his head a little in short, knowing nods. "You and I share a secret, Sanji-san. We both know more about the depths of Zoro-san's devotion than the rest of the crew, about how far he is willing to go and how much he is willing to hide. And so, knowing that, I would like to ask . . . why are you blaming yourself for this?"

Half-phrases try to push past each other and tumble out his mouth, trip over his tongue and come out a stuttering garble of, "I didn't tell- I knew- I should have- I know what Zoro's like- I didn't realize- I should have known-" and finally grind to a halt with that final, heavy, "I should have said something."

"Such a heavy word, 'should.' So full of expectations and responsibilities. I hadn't thought you would be so foolish as to use it in regards to something like this." He levels the slender line of his index at Sanji. "One cannot save someone from the consequences of their own stupidity. To even try is the height of arrogance. A man's choices, no matter how poor, should have meaning, don't you think?"

Sanji's mouth twists, his smile bitter. "Shitty hypocrite. Aren't you trying to patch over my mistake right now?"

"But it was not a mistake," says Brook. "It was a choice. The choice of a gentleman. The choice of _discretion_. And I believe you will find it preserved something more important than a few pints of Zoro-san's blood." Brook's naked teeth glitter in his own, eerie smile. "Trust between one's nakama is so much more vital, don't you agree?"

" . . . how do you manage to be so smart without a brain?"

Brook's rolling laughter fills the kitchen. "Ah, but this isn't intelligence of the mind, Sanji-san! This is the wisdom of the soul."

"Tch. Guess I have no choice but to accept what you say, then, since you're the expert on that stuff," says Sanji over the sound crying coming from the infirmary door. "And you can stop pretending not to be listening, Franky."

"Iz jus' so touchin'~"

The door opens and Nami-san pokes her head out, the sun coming out from behind the clouds. "Is all the boy talk done, finally? Can we come in?"

Brook bows to her from his seat at the bar. "Indeed, all has been said. Thank you for your patience, Nami-san."

"Eh?! You made Nami-swan wait, you afro-bastard? And you call yourself a gentleman?!"

"Age before beauty, Sanji-san," says Brook, and has the gall to fucking twinkle at Sanji with a teasing tilt to his head and a bright laugh.

Nami-san, merciful angel that she is, ignores this insult to her importance and strides into the galley to takes a seat besides Brook, the rest of their crew of morons trailing after and Robin-chan bringing up the rear, until everyone but their patient is lined up at the counter watching Sanji cook.

Luffy takes a deep breath. "That smells like _meat!_ "

"It's just broth and it's just for Zoro, so keep your hands out of the kitchen or I'll use them for jerky," snaps Sanji. He pours the coconut water into the ice tray. He's going to have a lot of coconut meat on hand tonight. Maybe now's the time to try making that coco relish he's been thinking about?

Chopper bounces excitedly on his stool. "Are you making coconut ice for Zoro? That's so smart, Sanji!"

"Let's wait an see if it freezes well, first." But the compliment eases some of the tension lingering in his shoulders and his throat, enough that he manages to squeeze out, "You . . . don't seem mad I didn't tell you about the orchid thing before now."

Chopper rolls his eyes. "People hide things from doctors all the time. I'm used to it. And anyway, it wouldn't have made a difference. I gave him a full physical, remember? Blood and urine tests, too, like the rest of the crew who had-"

"Do we have to talk about this in the galley?" Usopp mashes his face into the counter top, covers his head with his arms. "We _eat_ here."

Robin-chan tilts her head, crosses her arms and puts her chin in the palm of a third hand. "This is the place Cook-san is most at ease. This conversation will be difficult enough without forcing him to have it in a place literally outside of his comfort zone."

"Robin-chwan is so considerate of my feelings!"

"Of course. And I am certain you will show me your appreciation by explaining this business with orchids," says Miss AllSunday, knives in her lovely smile. " _Now._ "

"I would never dream of denying Robin-chwan's request," Sanji whimpers.

He does his best to keep the recital clinical, the details minimal. They don't need to know about the way Zoro's back curved, about the rose and gold of his blushing passion, about the flutter of his pulse under Sanji's fingertips or the sultry moans that had dripped with the spit from Zoro's lips as he was fucked.

Through it all Sanji keeps himself busy, hands fluttering from cupboard to cupboard, pulling out ingredients for cookies because it's bake or die of sheer humiliation. Really, he'd have much preferred to only tell this to Chopper, but with Zoro down and out over this he's got no choice but to offer explanations to their Captain and crew.

Luffy is absolutely fascinated. "So the god was just a giant, magic, butt-loving orchid? Wow! I wish I'd seen it! Hey, do you think it likes everyone's butt, or just virgin butts?"

To Sanji's horror, Robin-chan's gaze grows distant, and her voice is thoughtful, serious as she replies, "An interesting question, Captain-san. Considering the care that the islanders took to ensure a true virgin offering, one would assume that virginity is in fact important in some way. Of course, it could simply be a means of preventing disease-"

"Virginity doesn't guarantee a lack of STIs!" snaps Chopper. He bangs his hoof angrily on the counter top. "I told Sanji that! I told all of you that! And their doctors should have told them that! They've got no business holding orgies if they don't even know basic health facts!"

Usopp perks up from his slump. "Oh, so I could have something right now that I caught on the island? No wonder I feel terrible. It must be Death-by-Embarrassment I keep hearing about."

Franky pats him gently on the shoulder. "I feel you, bro. I have just heard TMI about Zoro's sex life, and the worst of it is, it's way more exciting than mine! _OW!_ "

"Okay, enough about the sex," Nami-san says, swiping her hand across the counter top as if to wipe away the previous discussion. She ignores the mumbled chorus of 'thank yous' from Sanji and Usopp, and continues, "Let's talk practicalities. What does this mean? Does Zoro just have a flower coming out of his face now? Or is it something we have to worry about?"

"Perhaps he, too, will become an enormous tentacle orchid," muses Robin-chan.

"Oooh! Zoro would like that," says Luffy approvingly. "Then he'd be able to hold even more swords!"

"Not going to happen." Surprisingly, those clear, firm words are actually Usopp's. "If Zoro was infected by something like ivy or mint or kudzu, then I'd worry, but not with an orchid. It's true that they're parasitic plants, but they don't completely take over a host, they just live on it. Or, uh, in it, I guess?"

They all stare at him blankly for a moment before Luffy laughs and stretches an arm over to slap Usopp on the back. "That's right! Usopp's an expert on plants! Neh, Usopp, why is it in Zoro's eyeball instead of his butt?"

"Uh, well. I don't know about the mechanics of how it got there, but . . . it looks like a mutant variety of Cymbidium. They like to have their roots in small, cramped spaces, and to stay nice and damp. An eye socket is pretty much exactly that?"

Robin-chan, her mind obviously busy turning over all the ramifications, absently adds, "Parasitizing a mobile host would allow it to spread its pollen to farther islands . . . ."

Her comment sparks a memory in Sanji. "That's right! That shitty plant told me to give it lots of grandchildren!"

Luffy tilts his head and hums. "Grandkids, huh? So then maybe Zoro will squirt seeds out his butt when he poops?"

"Stop talking about Zoro's butt," snarls Nami-san.

"Actually, that wouldn't be a bad way of doing it. A lot of plants like to use animals to I'm shutting up now please stop hitting me," says Usopp.

Nami-san glares at the rest them, her eyes blazing and her fist raised in promise. " _WELL!_?"

Brook coughs. "Does my memory deceive me, or did the vendor back on Mayshee imply that other sacrifices sprouted flowers?" he says, gracefully changing the subject and regaining some of credit as a gentleman.

"Very true. 'Wonderful lady. Always has orchids in her hair,'" quotes Robin-chan, her memory as flawless as the rest of her. "It seems the evidence suggests that Swordsman-san will not become a tentacle plant after all. How unfortunate."

"Robin-chwan's sense of humour is so unique," says Sanji with a weak laugh. ". . . Wait a minute." As the realization sinks in, outrage sparks and kindles the flames of righteous anger. "Does this mean they've been turning all those lovely young ladies they've sacrificed into flowerpots?! Those assholes! Psychopaths! Enemies of women! Luffy, we can't let-"

But Nami-san is shaking her head. "We can't go back."

"Eh? Because they told us not to? Who cares?" Luffy asks.

It's Franky who blurts, "That's why they stole the Eternal Log post!"

Nami-san smiles with grim approval. "Exactly. I thought it was strange, especially when the place they sent us to was that useless little island Tanizaff, but now that we know they were desperate to keep us from going back it all makes sense. Here, I'll show you. Sanji-kun, do you have anything I can-?" her voice trails away as she mimes scribbling.

He hands her the pen and paper he uses for grocery lists, and they all crowd around to see her hasty sketch.

She says, "The way we travel on the Grand Line is basically a chain. From a neutral position, the Log Post points to the closest island. When we go to an island, staying long enough to let the Log Post 'set' means that our current location becomes 'neutral.' The Log Post can ignore the island we are on, and point to a new one, including the one we were on before. It makes a journey that looks something like this:

O ↔ O ↔ O ↔ O

"Sometimes multiple islands can make a kind of circle or pyramid.

O ↔ O  
↕       ↕  
O ↔ O

"You can return to any of the islands by going around the circle. But when we use an Eternal Post, it breaks that chain. An Eternal Post points to the same place no matter where you are, right? it takes you past any other islands you might have stopped at. So this is what we did when following that post.

O ↔ O ↔ (Mayshee) →→→→→ ? →→→→→ (Ambrwazee)

"We have no way of knowing how many islands are between Mayshee and Ambrwazee because we never stopped there. And then we did the same thing again when we left and went to Tanizaff. Because of the Eternal Post breaking the chain, even if we went back to Tanizaff and chose a different direction the Log Post shows us, it probably won't bring us back to Ambrwazee because the closest islands could be anything. Like this:

  
O ↔ O ↔ (Mayshee) →→→→→ ? →→→→→ (Ambrwazee) →→→→→ ? →→→→→      ↔ ?   
                                                                                                                     ? ↔(Tanizaff)↔ ?  
                                                                                                                               ↔ ?

"It's not impossible to go back. But it would take a long time and a lot of effort," she concludes.

Robin-chan nods. "The islanders chose an excellent strategy. The only weak point would have been if Swordsman-san bloomed before we reached Tanizaff."

Luffy is scowling down at the drawing, tracing the lines with his fingers. He says, "We aren't going back."

The crew trade glances, surprised at this easy surrender.

Tentatively, Nami-san offers, "Are you sure? I could get us there if you really wanted."

"I know. Nami can take us anywhere. But you said it'll take a lot of time, right? That's no good. Chopper's still worried the flower will do weird stuff to Zoro."

"Parasites aren't something to be casual about!"

"But if this has happened a lot, won't the people on all the islands connected to Tanizaff have met other butt-flower people? Would they be able to help?"

The crew trade glances.

"If all the sacrifices have been sent to Tanizaff after the ritual then, yes, it's likely that any island withing Log distance of Tanizaff have at least seen one victim," says Nami-san.

"Then we keep going forward until we find someone who can tell us more."

"Yes, Captain," they all answer.


End file.
